Tricky question. A similar question would be, what is the difference between declarative language (I love you) and descriptive language (my love is like a red red rose)? When is one or the other appropriate? I think it's fairly clear that poetry tends to be an act of descriptive language, but it's important to remember that generally some declarative element underlies it. This is to say that I don't go about describing angels on a rooftop (as in "Elegy for the Second Person") without intending to communicate something (though what that something is may not be immediately apparent). This is the component of the poem that we conventionally refer to as "meaning." So, in a manner of speaking, we don't use a declarative phrase like "I love you" directly, but instead use a descriptive phrase like "my love is like a red red rose" to *describe* what the declaration "I love you" means.

So, can you make poems without comparison? Well, yes and no. The meat of many of my poems isn't the conventional metaphor and simile, but the deeply implied image or implicit allegory. These are still comparisons, but they are of a different type. The most important thing to remember is that poetry is an act of language before anything else; it's not inherently an act of emotion, and while imagery is by no means optional, it is secondary (in my opinion) to how you use the words. There are situations in which direct, non-imagistic and declarative statements are the most effective routes by which a poem can satisfy its end goal (which is to communicate its meaning), but these situations are few and far between in my experience. Mostly we try to make poems that resonate in the bones, that leave the reader with sensory data they can remember far more vividly than abstract ideas or empty declarations. Everyone says "I love you." Not many people say, "If I could touch you, my hands would sing."

At the same time, though, it is possible to use language in such a way that it is thoroughly memorable -- rhetoric is the most effective tool in this. Zeugma, a classical rhetorical device, doesn't rely on image but on the way a verb acts on subjects -- he lost his wallet and his temper. For breakfast I had coffee and a hangover. More common rhetorical devices would be things like irony, paradox, overstatement, and the like. It's the cleverness of the language that makes the phrases vivid. Marvin Bell uses rhetorical cleverness to open his poem, "To Dorothy":

You are not beautiful, exactly.
You are beautiful, inexactly.

If you find your mind works more in terms of grammar and syntax, this may appeal to you. Keep in mind, though, that true art in rhetoric is really the theatre of masters.

I'm rambling a bit here, and I apologize. I could talk about this for days.

Keep in mind, additionally, that there are far more kinds of imagery than the simple metaphor and simile, and that even metaphor and simile have piles of variations. There is symbolism, allegory, analogy, synesthesia, tricks with allusion, personification, etc. There are implied metaphors, mixed metaphors, metaphysical conceits, methods of color-coding, etc., etc. As Ezra Pound says, the life so short, the craft so long to learn.

And another thing. In a manner of speaking, your mind *does* go like that. Learning to use imagery in this fashion is a symbolic act, and if you can use language, you can perform very complex symbolic acts. Words themselves are symbols. Every time you have to explain something by comparison (a mattox is like a pick-axe, except ...), you're using a poetic device. If you've ever begun an explanation or a story with "imagine this" or "picture this," you're using the symbol-making function of your mind alongside the story-telling function. Everyone has been trained from birth to make poems, simply by virtue of being taught how to speak, read and write. The trick is to develop enough sensitivity to what you've been learning all these years to be able to manipulate for vivid description and linguistic music.

Hope this helps more than it confuses.

LOL Stjnky!

Personally, I'm not a metaphor gal, either. I like short chunks of text that are to-the-point, not flowery, and have some double-meanings, or a play on words. Don't know if this is some SPECIFIC type of poetry, but tha's some COOL SHIT.

The Duchess