Implied Metaphor: A Problem in Evaluating Contemporary Poetry

Abstract

One of the criteria which a reader has long been able to use more or less ob jectively in evaluating a poem is that of effective metaphor. He has been able to establish the tenor,1 and having established it, has then been able to say whether the vehicle used to explain it is too trite to be interesting or too gro tesque to be believed, whether it creates a suitable tone, whether it is contra dictory or obscure or mixed. But many contemporary poets, while still using metaphor in its usual ways, have also extended its form so that it is at one ex treme almost indistinguishable from literal description or narrative (a vehicle without a tenor) and at the other extreme almost indistinguishable from mere randomness or nonsense (neither tenor nor vehicle). As a result, editors, critics, reviewers and readers often hesitate, vacillate and finally disagree about the suc cess or failure of a contemporary poem. A comparison of two poems by Philip Hey2 illustrates what I mean by the first kind of implied metaphor, that in which the tenor is implied. Painting the Barn3 is quite literally a man's thoughts about painting a barn while painting a barn. I detect nothing in it which leads me to believe that the barn or the painter or the action stand for something else: