When I was an autodidact kiddo I bought Ted Hughes's A Hawk in the Rain on the
strength of A. Alvarez's review in The Observer. After so much hype I was a
little let down because the book was derivative from Hopkins, whom I was
reading, but I noted Hughes's unusual gift of metaphor: "The curlew's tear
turned its edge on the silence," etc., and certain clear
metaphorical/allegorical achievements like "The Thought-Fox". This is all so
long ago and I came under the influence of post-WC Williams's schools where
the ornamental use of metaphor seemed old-fashioned and it appeared more
important that a poem should state what it had to state directly, leaving the
innovation to take place within the production of the language rather than by
wilful metaphorical painting.
Ornamental metaphor, however, has remained the principal distinction of
mainstream poetry in Britain, one thing that sets its distance from more
experimental modes where the operations are carried out more on the process of
language than on metaphorical displacement of parallel image with attendant
coherence of image development (i.e., the more traditional techniques).
Yet it's a modern intellectual cliché to say, following Jakobson (Lacan,
Derrida, etc.) that in the primary stirrings of the unconscious towards
consciousness something like a metaphorical act of mind takes place -- that
is in the deep subliminal levels which can be tapped by all the tricks of
post-modern language operations. It would be easy to show the workings of
metaphor even in the most whizz-kid verbal textures -- note fossilised
metaphorical vocabulary in this very paragraph: "stirrings", "tapped", "show",
"whizz, etc.
Providing I clear out the way first a statement of mine to the effect that
there is no such thing as an "old-fashioned" poetic technique (listees may
disagree), a peculiar question nevertheless arises:
What constitutes an overdone use of metaphor, according to listees personal
tastes as at present operative? (For example, metaphors practised by such
Hughes disciples as the (old) "New Martians" seemed to my taste well overdone
before they even started cooking -- their novelty was in sheer abundance and
-- very occasionally -- in some striking aptness.) Do modern experimental
techniques get clear of metaphor? Evidently not, because metaphor is too
deeply buried in our acts of mind. So what do such practitioners regard as an
interesting development in metaphorical modes?
To be precise: I am not so interested in metaphor as a major trope, conducted
for ornamental purposes in the traditional Brit poem, though I'm not seeking
to rule out ANYTHING: I'm asking, "How deep into the mind do you think
metaphor goes, and what difference does it make to your view of poetry
writing?" And I am deliberately framing this question to be friendly to
listees who like traditional metaphorical forms as well as to those who think
they have gone beyond them.
Happy New Year
Doug
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