Metaphorical language in poetry.

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Metaphorical Language in Poetry

Metaphors are essential tools in poetry. In the poems “No Ordinary Sun”, and “Ron Mason”, by Hone Tuwhare, metaphors are utilised by the speaker for different purposes, to enhance images, or enforce meanings; and because they add elements, such as ambiguity, irony, and allusiveness that more prosaic expression cannot.

In the first stanza of “Ron Mason”, the aspect of Time is personified, where the speaker says that Time `pulls up a chair' in order to pause and ponder the life of Ron Mason, a New Zealand poet, the subject of this poem.

A similar use of personification as a metaphor is also used in `No Ordinary Sun', in which the speaker personifies a tree during a nuclear explosion, using imperatives such as `Tree let your arms fall' and `incline a deferential head', suggesting that the tree has a certain degree of wisdom. These metaphors serve to identify the speaker's close relationship with the object by giving the tree qualities that one would usually associates with a human.

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Other metaphors are used to display further the speaker's emotions, interpretations or thoughts toward objects. In `No Ordinary Sun', Tuwhare says that the tree will no longer be `wreathed with the delightful flight / of birds', using ‘a wreath’ as a metaphor visually depicting the birds surrounding the tree. In further context, this metaphor demonstrates the allusiveness of poetic expression– an allusion to the ‘soon to be destroyed beauty’.

This usage is also found in `Ron Mason’, in the line `Your suit has not the right cut for me... new armpit sweat'. The speaker is alluding to the difference ...

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