Monday, February 14, 2005

Educate Me

Is there a name for this? I was reading a Jack Gilbert poem, Measuring the Tyger. In this bit --

...............The weight of the mind fractures
the girders and piers of the spirit, spilling out
the heart's melt. Incandescent ingots big as cars
trundling out of titanic mills, red slag scaling off
the brighter metal in the dark.


-- I was struck by how "titanic mills" immediately drew my brain to pull up "dark satanic mills". What would you call that? Implied rhyming allusion? I remember having similar reactions to other poems recently, although I can't recall specifics. It's an interesting device. You could use it, I suppose, to subvert cliches, or for any number of subtleties.

What wide new vistas of subliminal manipulation open up (insert the evil laughter of a mad poetic genius ... not.)

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