Metaphors, similes, symbols, and allegories – a poet uses these to his or her wants, usually to convey a plethora of meanings, to bring in elements of fantasy and to give them a semblance of normalcy, which a reader would understand, accept and analyze. Many a times, a poem should not be and cannot be taken in the literal sense. The reader should exercise what Coleridge in his ‘Biogrpahia Literaria’ terms ‘Willing suspension of disbelief”. A willingness in the reader to not take every word in the poem for what it says literally, but what it conveys using symbols, allusions, metaphors and similes.
He said,
” It was agreed, that my endeavors should be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic, yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith. Mr. Wordsworth on the other hand was to propose to himself as his object, to give the charm of novelty to things of every day, and to excite a feeling analogous to the supernatural, by awakening the mind's attention from the lethargy of custom, and directing it to the loveliness and the wonders of the world before us ”
Using figurative language and imagery in a poem bring a magical, supernatural, out of the world experience to the reader, conveying both the precise and suggestive meaning. It does not carry a literal meaning; it does however convey the meaning more evocatively and effectively.
The poems in this chapter talk about work, but from different perspectives. The poet is the one doing the work, it is a first person narrative that we see in poems ‘What work is’ and ‘blue berries’. These two poems do not use fancy words, but take a gritty, realistic perspective to convey pain, anguish and loss. Boca’s ‘So Mexicans are taking jobs from Americans’ also talks about work and migrant workers in a detached way, using sarcasm and dark humor to bring out the deep underbelly of racial hatred. The Lady in the pink mustang is about the prostitute and the poet uses the pink mustang as an analogy throughout the poem to bring out both the emptiness and the flashiness in her life.
The first poem, by Charles fort, ‘We did not fear the father’, uses the father’s profession to describe the man and also bring out how the children see him. He is simultaneously seen as the breadwinner, the hard worker, the protector, the provider and also tragically the sufferer who loses health and life in providing for the children. There are no sentimental, overblown words to bring out the suffering of the father, or the depth of the feelings the children have for him, yet we feel the pain of the father and the children who see him suffer and hold many jobs just to feed them.
In Mary Oliver’s Singapore, the poet uses similes to describe the mundane work done by the cleaning woman in the restroom. She describes the scrubbing motion to that of a river, not slow, not fast, but keeps going at its own pace. The cleaning lady smiles at the poet, yet does not stop, just like a river would flow, letting the viewer enjoy the beauty, but never stop. She uses symbols from nature, the fluidity of the water and the gracefulness of the trees, to describe a normal event that many would fail to notice. By evoking and comparing this commonplace action to nature, the poet brings out the beauty in the regular, rhythmic work of the cleaning woman.
Although used differently in the poems in this chapter, the various figures of speeches, symbolism and the rest transports the reader into the psyche of the poet and that of the subjects. They definitely elevate the poem to greater levels.
References
1. Coleridge, Samuel. Biographia Literaria. 1817. Chapter XIV.
