[Gary Keenan]

I've been reading and thoroughly enjoying Michael Schmidt's LIVES OF THE POETS, and came across a passage about George Herbert (love his stuff) that I wish I'd written. In my responses to various poems, I often find myself desiring less metaphor, and I've urged many writers to do without it. In Schmidt's words on Herbert, here's why:

"The colloquial tone of the best poems is sustained by an undecorated diction. "Jordan (i)" advocates plainness, though in itself it is so complex that it is at odds with its statement. In general Herbert rejects verses that 'burnish, sprout and swell,/Curling with metaphors.' His imagery includes stars, trees, food, wine--each with symbolic value but a firm literal sense. Object begin as themselves, then cast a shadow beyond themselves, tracing a pattern of grace."

This is an excellent statement of how literal detail acquires larger, metaphorical significance, and why I prefer poems and poets whose attentions focus on literal expression, even when in a lyric mode.

"In The Desert" by Stephen Crane shows precise, unadorned literal depiction as it develops a single, symbolic image.

In The Desert

In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter--bitter," he answered,
"But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart."

This poem has three adjectives, one of them repeated three times. Every noun/verb phrase portrays literal action, though clearly the scenario is imaginative. Each line moves the expression forward in an essential and suprising increment. The result is something quite strange, a truly monstrous revelation whose truth is not a comfort, whose beauty is unsparing, ruthless.

In some of his greatest short poems, Wallace Stevens takes an even more austere approach. In "Crude Foyer" he begins by eschewing image as well as metaphor, so as a concrete noun or figurative phrase arises, the rhetoric amplifies the task of depiction in language as one based in thought--in a way of thinking about the world.

Crude Foyer

Thought is false happiness: the idea
That merely by thinking one can,
Or may, penetrate, not may,
But can, that one is sure to be able--

That there lies at the end of thought
A foyer of the spirit in a landscape
Of the mind, in which we sit
And wear humanity's bleak crown;

In which we read the critique of paradise
And say it is the work
Of a comedian, this critique;
In which we sit and breath

An innocence of an absolute,
False happiness, since we know that we use
Only the eye as faculty, that the mind
Is the eye, and that this landscape of the mind

Is a landscape only of the eye; and that
We are ignorant men incapable
Of the least, minor, vital metaphor, content,
At last, there, when it turns out to be here.

As I understand Stevens, he is asking for something similar to William Blake, seeing "through the eye, not with it." His poem is a meditation on the limits of meditation itself "in which we sit and breath//An innocence of an absolute,/False, happiness..." His terms are simple and directly composed within each phrase but arranged in a slowly accumulating grammatical complex, as the poem moves through its argument that poetry is a kind of "new knowledge of reality"--a recognitition of being, rather than a florid expression of personal cleverness. The deep, unwilled metaphor surrounds us, rendering our own contrivances puny.

The examples of Stevens and Crane are both free verse poems, while Herbert as a 17th century poet wrote formal, metrical poems, and the issue of austerity isn't limited to a particular form or verse style. In any mode of writing, the quality of attention to language, bringing that language to bear upon human experience as directly and deeply as possible, makes a poem.

[Brett Thibault]

A small expansion, maybe for only my own benefit...

Indeed it's not metaphor, per se, that a seasoned reader would wish to eschew, but the inept presentation of metaphor. Metaphor is the most effective tool we have both to sort and express: sustained non-metaphorical thought is a practical impossibility, methinks.

Austere language is near congruent to severe language in my estimation. I like necessary language as a description of the preferred vehicle. Accurate language would understudy. If one uses only the words necessary to convey a thought through image, juxtaposition of image or statement of abstract definition, the work of communication would be balanced on the shoulders of thought and language.

On one level, then, it's the discernment of what is necessary that becomes the author's task. The Crane poem stands as a fine example--only a couple of words could be removed without upsetting the sense--but those few words cannot be removed without completely ruining the affect. Alternately, the same statement/thought in the hands of a writer of unnecessary words, "In the desert" could easily become "In the parched, bone-strewn flatlands". The two modifiers seem poetic, but are unnecessary and redundant, and the noun brings along with it unnecessary, additional imagery.

This is a narrow focus, however, on only one aspect of language that requires supreme attention and doesn't take into account many of the attributes that make a poem durable--like musical device.

[This message has been edited by Brett Thibault (edited May 28, 2001).]

[Nigel Holt]

I would have to agree with Brett that "sufficiency", is the goal rather than a more anorexic mimimalism which echoes a formalist's desire to see form as pre-eminent over content.
Whilst a minimalistic approach can be effective, I feel that the insufficiency of metaphor, or metaphor stripped to incomprehensibility is not ideal. In cases such as this, it may be that the poet is relying on "preaching to the converted" - and the poetic diction used is that familiar to well-educated poets and few others.

The use of "familiar colloquial" language is misleading, for most people do not speak the language considered informal to writers - indeed, most speakers of English speak and write in a dialectic variant. The key is audience - as in rhetoric we have to be aware of who exactly we are writing for. I would hazard that most poets write to themselves in some way.

As far as "plain language" is concerned, I agree that mundanity or unadorned writing can breed art in a particular context in a Dadaistic fashion by using an abnormal juxtaposition of everyday words. That does not mean however, that we should by rule, eschew words that are not commonplace. Many words from unconventional roots may be le mot juste we are searching for, for as Brett rightly points out, the sonic aspect of the word is equally important in our choice of phrasing. There is a world of difference between adornment and being uncommon or abstruse.

I would also say that presentation is equally important, both contextually and in its form, as it presented on the page - some poems are meant to be read rather than read out. The use of a visual play on words is common in many people's work.

[Jeanne]

Hi everyone -

I'm thrilled to find this new discussion group! May it richly reward us over the coming months and hopefully years.

Regarding dazzling metaphor vs. the well chosen concrete image, I offer these reflections:

1. A fresh and striking metaphor is very entertaining at
first reading and often memorable if it is not crowded out
by others.

2. I find that too many metaphors is mind-numbing to the
point where it distances me, the reader, from the core content of the poem.

3. I don't remember poems that are basically set pieces for
metaphors.

4. I get a little embarrassed when I write a poem laden
with metaphors, as if I'm being too contrived and showy
and trying too hard to be "poetic".


Regarding concrete images,

1. They have the truth of first hand experience - the
truth of sensory perception - which is very convincing
of any message a poet is trying to get across.

2. They often have "aware" (ah-WAW-rey)or the ability to
elicit emotions, as they say in Japan - just by themselves
with no qualifiers at all. This touchingness, I feel, is what goes to the heart of the reader far more than the
clever, Western-style metaphor.

3. They often carry inherent metaphor without the poet
having to point it out to the reader.

4. In their particularity and source in first hand-exper-
ience they often are far more original than the contrived
metaphor.

5. They open the writer up to the moment. The poet can
give him/herself up to experiencing the "now", taking in
the details, responding sensitively to them, learning
from them, and so on, rather than starting out by thinking
"Okay, what can I write today about war or love or you?

Just a few quick thoughts from a person who has been writing haiku and tanka for that past five years.

Jeanne

3.

[Suzanne Frischkorn]

"The colloquial tone of the best poems is sustained by an undecorated diction. "Jordan (i)" advocates plainness, though in itself it is so complex that it is at odds with its statement. In general Herbert rejects verses that 'burnish, sprout and swell,/Curling with metaphors.' His imagery includes stars, trees, food, wine--each with symbolic value but a firm literal sense. Object begin as themselves, then cast a shadow beyond themselves, tracing a pattern of grace."


What an eloquent way to describe the draw of (what I term) shaker style poems as opposed to baroque poems. Thanks for sharing this Gary. My preference in poetry is firmly in Herbert's camp. Crane's "In the Desert," is a perfect example and also one of my favorites. In my opinon the Art (regardless of media) should be hidden at first glance, and deepen upon reflection. Viva Austerity!

Great thread--
Thanks Suzanne

[SteveWal]

My problem with too much plainess, however, is that it can seem rather anorexic. Too much decoration and the poem collapses like a pack of cards, but too little and it's just tasteless.

Then again, a lot of "plain" poems are like being at a convention of Puritan worthies: all sober, serious types frowning at the dancers and singers down the hall. And I know haiku are very popular, but I confess to finding most of them boring, except one by John Cooper Clarke:

Putting everything
in seventeen slyables
is very diffic

I feel with some serious, plain poetry that there isn't much of a sense of humour in the writer, and for me that's part of the pleasure.

------------------
Steve Waling

[Barbara Thimm]

a very brief offering for this fascinating topic (more later) ...

the potential weakness of metaphor lies in its making the reader aware of the poet's presence, and thus limits the reader's opportunities to engage with the poem.

A "plain" poem, if it is good, comes via a more direct route, its techniques are less obviously poetic, but necessarily more subtle.

but there are very good metaphorical poems as well..... examples?

[Barbara Thimm]

Sylvia Plath's poem "Words" strikes as a good example how the distinction we seem to be talking about can be dissolved.....

Words

Axes
After whose stroke the wood rings,
And the echoes!
Echoes traveling
Off from the center like horses.

The sap
Wells like tears, like the
Water striving
To re-establish its mirror
Over the rock

That drops and turns,
A white skull,
Eaten by weedy greens.
Years later I
Encounter them on the road---

Words dry and riderless,
The indefatigable hoof-taps.
While
From the bottom of the pool, fixed stars
Govern a life.

[graywyvern]

all too many criticasters would snap at that word "indefatigable" like a bass at a lure, having learned only the Short List of No-No's & nothing about what makes true poetry at all...

[Peter K]

I agree with points made in preceding posts on the merits of metaphor vis-a-vis a more direct-language approach in poetry.

Specifically, I like Brett's view, "Austere language is near congruent to severe language in my estimation. I like necessary language as a description of the preferred vehicle." And I strongly concur with Nigel's statement "that 'sufficiency', is the goal rather than a more anorexic minimalism which echoes a formalist's desire to see form as pre-eminent over content."

Much of what I would interpret to be direct-language poetry (i.e., Billy Collins, Charles Simic) strikes me as lazy, even sloppy, and boring. Let me hasten to say that I accept and support the idea that what strikes one reader as lazy, sloppy, and boring may be profound and moving to another reader. Nevertheless, poems without the benefit of metaphor seem to lack a depth of personality that I believe resonates within effective poems.

As an example I'll offer an excerpt from a poem, "ABSCHIEDS SYMPHONY," by our moderator, Dorianne Laux:

. . . For months now all I've wanted is the blessing
of inattention, to move carefully from room to room
in my small house, numb with forgetfulness.
To eat a bowl of cereal and not imagine him,
scrubbed thin and pale, unable to swallow.
How not to imagine the tumors
ripening beneath his skin, flesh
I have kissed, stroked with my fingertips,
pressed my belly and breasts against, some nights
so hard I thought I could enter him, open
his back at the spine like a door or a curtain
and slip in like a small fish between his ribs,
nudge the coral of his brain with my lips,
brushing over the blue coils of his bowels
with the fluted silk of my tail.
Death is not romantic. He is dying,
no matter how I see it, no matter
what I believe, that fact is stark
and one dimensional, atonal,
a black note on an empty staff. . . .

From "plain language" description, to simile, and metaphor; back to the stark statements, "Death is not romantic. He is dying," . . . which are reinforced through the brief metaphor of the "atonal . . . black note on an empty staff." The poem might work if stripped clean of this metaphorical clutter, but I don't think its effect would be nearly as powerful.