> Hello Helen,
              Thanks for your comments on the controversy of the teeth. The danger of thinking our experiences are universal is one that I´m vaguely familiar with. I don´t know if I´ve caught quite correctly your application of it here, but the line I´m working along involves a question over the use of metaphor. Again, I´m not sure if I´ve got this right but I think I´ve picked up somewhere (maybe comments on this list, or perhaps reviews of poetry books) that there is a problem with using metaphor - metaphor is bad/wrong/dangerous - something like that? Is it so? I mean, has such a conviction gained popularity? If this IS the case then I think the reasoning must go something along the lines of `just because my experiences and mental processes lead my brain to form a connection between two objects, I must not assume that others(readers) are going to make the same connection and that therefore using my own metaphorical connections in poetry will be misleading and possibly an affront to the rights of the reader´. Again, have I got this right, or am I completely off the mark? If this is all so, then I conclude the argument against these wretched teeth is that they are in my mind, not in the jaw of the blessed snow leopard, and that they should have stayed there;-) I had been planning to raise this question about metaphor earlier because I had begun to wonder whether there was something I didn´t know and now it has come up by itself, so to speak. Does anyone out there know the answer to this?


Puzzled of Finland (a.k.a Mike)



> Lähettäjä: Helen Clare <[log in to unmask]>
> Päiväys: 2003/11/20 to PM 06:16:16 GMT+02:00
> Vastaanottaja: [log in to unmask]
> Aihe: Re: Dents du midi - Sue/Mike
> 
> any reader/ average reader - I still think despite conversations elsewhere
> that we have to be careful in assuming our experience is universal!
> Personally, if a simile spoke of both teeth in a jaw  I'd look for it to
> give me an image of the teeth, the jaw and the teeth in the jaw.
> Helen
> 
> 
> - Original Message -----
> From: Sue Scalf <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Thursday, November 20, 2003 11:48 AM
> Subject: Re: Dents du midi - Sue
> 
> 
> > Average reader was not a good word choice, Mike.  Any reader might have
> been
> > a better one.
>