For poetry agony aunts (Simile cop out)

[bogusagain]

I might be talking out of my rear end on this and I obviously use similes as much as anyone else. Anyway, I feel using similes as a cop out and it is a failure on my part for not having the imagination to conjure up a metaphor or some other creative construction. To me likening something to something else just seems lazy writing. I accept that sometimes it is what is needed but that for us poetry low lifes, we use similes too often.

Any thoughts? Are my anxieties well founded? If my reader was lover, when I use a simile would she thinking. Oh my god (yawn) and waiting for me to conjure up some good moves?

 

[Angeline]

I might be talking out of my rear end on this and I obviously use similes as much as anyone else. Anyway, I feel using similes as a cop out and it is a failure on my part for not having the imagination to conjure up a metaphor or some other creative construction. To me likening something to something else just seems lazy writing. I accept that sometimes it is what is needed but that for us poetry low lifes, we use similes too often.

Any thoughts? Are my anxieties well founded? If my reader was lover, when I use a simile would she thinking. Oh my god (yawn) and waiting for me to conjure up some good moves?

I can find better things to be anxious about than a simile in a poem, but imo overuse of any single device is probably not going to serve one's poem well--not unless the simile (or metaphor or whatever the device) is the point of the poem, like this one:

Litany
Billy Collins

You are the bread and the knife,
The crystal goblet and the wine
-Jacques Crickillon

You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.

It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.

And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.

It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.

I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.

I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman's tea cup.
But don't worry, I'm not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and--somehow--the wine.

Yeah I know, Billy again, but it came to mind when I read your post. Anyway, I never rule out anything in poetry, any device, any trick, anything I can beg, borrow or steal if it seems to improve my poem. But sloppy or lazy writing is something else again though most of us know when we are doing it--and good poets know how to fix it. Overall though I'd just reiterate that over-reliance on anything is not a good idea--in poems or, for that matter, life.

 

[bronzeage]

O fair Katharine, if you will love me soundly with
your French heart, I will be glad to hear you
confess it brokenly with your English tongue. Do
you like me, Kate?

Pardonnez-moi, I cannot tell vat is 'like me.'

An angel is like you, Kate, and you are like an angel.