As far as poetry is concerned, metaphor is the most scintillating
move a poem can make, for it changes one thing into another
without any prefaces or summaries or apologies. We use meta-
phor on a daily basis and for better or worse, as we shout out
someone's nickname or refer to a public figure or invent a meta-
phor on the spot to describe what something was like, we tend
not to think twice about it. Certainly in poetry metaphor and
simile (a metaphor with "like" or "as" appended) hold great
power and deserve to be treated respectfully. How much meta-
phor is used in any given poem and how a metaphor is handled in
a poem depend on how extensive the poet wants the metaphor to
be. Metaphor can range from the assertive zinger of "x is y" to a
leisurely presentation of as many details as the poet chooses to
load into the "y" that tells about some "x." In any case, metaphor
speaks for the subconscious mind. It is verbal lightning.

Metaphor comes from the Greek word metaphora which is com-
posed of two parts: meta meaning "over" and pherein meaning "to
carry." The classical Western tradition of writing about metaphor, of
which Aristotle is the progenitor, has focused on the mechanical ele-
ment in this derivation. When we say, "Joe is a pig," the quality of pig-
gishness is carried over to define Joe. For Aristotle, metaphor is "a
departure from the ordinary means of language." Terence Hawkes
goes on to note in his book about the history of metaphor that for Ar-
istotle "metaphor is a kind of dignifying, enlivening ingredient, a set

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