Jennifer Grotz – The Literal and the Figurative  (January 2023)

“Imagery,” crucial to how we think about poems and verbal expression, is a slippery word that historically has shifted meaning and even now may refer to “literal” concrete description as well as “figurative” examples of simile and metaphor. Works by Dickinson, Komunyakaa, Milosz, and others inform this lecture which asks us to reconsider the possibilities of imagery in poetry as well as the vocabulary we might use to talk about it.