A Writer's Notebook, Day Nine-Hundred-And-Twenty-Three

Metaphor is, of course, an essential aspect of poetry, but, at root, it is not a complex idea.  Indeed, at root it is just drawing attention to a similarity, or, if I am bit less specific, a comparison.  Thomas Lux often said that he could teach every skill of poetry, except metaphor, that it was the inherent ability that needed to exist in order to be a poet.  To my mind, this is a truth, but not, I think, in the way it was intended.  Rather, I think the capacity for seeing the qualities of elements in our world as they repeat is an essential part of thought, and that that the lens of experiences paints what details we notice, what comparisons come to one person and not another.  Each of us has a unique capacity for metaphor, I think, a perspective upon which a personal poetics might be built.

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