There’s a growing assumption that poetry must shimmer with metaphor—that a poem must bend light, twist image, or turn every line into symbolic tension to be worth the word “poem.” And yes, metaphor can be powerful. It can compress experience. It can surprise us into new understanding.
But poetry is not made of metaphor. It is made of craft.
And sometimes, what a poem asks for isn’t ornament, but clarity—not cleverness, but alignment. Structure, rhythm, tone, line control. These are the bones beneath the shimmer. Without them, a metaphor becomes driftwood: interesting shape, but no direction.
A recent sonnet I shared was read by one thoughtful person who noted the presence of subtle metaphor—seafaring language like helm, compass, and tempests. They wondered if the metaphor could be expanded, made more explicit, or more visible.
And I appreciated the care in that question.
But here’s the quiet truth behind the poem: the metaphor was never meant to be loud. It was meant to be structural—a frame of movement, not a flag of meaning.
In fourteen lines, you can't do everything. You can only do one thing well—and let the rest speak through restraint.
I didn’t write that poem to showcase an idea. I wrote it to hold a principle. And I shaped it with the kind of craft that doesn’t clamor for attention—but invites the reader to slow down long enough to hear something they almost missed.
Because if craft has no value, then poetry isn’t worth reading.
And if metaphor is required to prove a poem’s worth—then we’ve lost the thread. We’ve traded architecture for ambiance. We’ve mistaken glitter for gravity.
I didn’t write for the scroll. I wrote for the line.