Poetry Literary Elements

The poet (Moore)

Free Verse

Metaphor:
-Moore uses the metaphor of "place" to suggest the arena of poetry. This is a "place" that should be filled with the genuine: filled with the body, with animals, with the senses, with the everyday, with "literalism of the imagination." It is a "garden" where what is lovely can bloom beside what is ugly and warty.

Simile:
-"the immovable critic twinkling his skin like a horse / that feels a flea"

Alliteration:
-"case after case / could be cited"
-"above / insolence and triviality and can present // for inspection, imaginary gardens with real toads in them"

Assonance:
-"feels a flea"

-Moore's whole tone is ironic, but the first line is especially so, for it is ironic to begin a poem that attempts to describe—and, presumably, embody—the virtues of poetry with the line "I, too, dislike it."

Poetry

Moore's own time (early 20th century)

Ironic, informal, contemptuous, amused

Pro: genuine poets Ant: "half poets" and "autocrats"

If poetry can find a way to be genuine and use raw material rather than focus on the "fiddle" and "triviality."

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-"I too, dislike it"

-"business documents and // school-books": reference to Tolstoy
-"literalists of / the imagination": a comment made by Yeats about Blake (see analysis and other in this study guide)
-"I, too, dislike it": reference to Samuel Butler's conversation with a young boy who said he did not like poetry

Synecdoche:
-the hands, the eyes, the hair are synecdoches for the whole human being

-"when dragged into prominence by half poets, / the result is not poetry"

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