Cliché metapoetry

 My problem with cliché metapoetry is that the ineffability trope just doesn't work very well for me. It's probably not because I don't understand it, but because I've seen it so many times that I want to scream from ennui. The problem is not that language is incapable of capturing experience in all its richness. The problem is much more fundamental than that: that is not even what language is about in the first place. 

If we expect the word cinnamon to smell like cinnamon, and then get disappointed because it doesn't, then we are making a basic mistake! Words are place holders. If we know what the smell is, and associate it with the word, then that is fine. 

So language must be working its magic some other way, not by doing what it cannot do, but by a purely linguistic magic. I look out my window and see the light reflected off new, light green leaves of an oak tree. I'm not going to get very far by trying a nice purple prose description of it and then wondering why it's not as pretty as a photo or painting of the scene. But language is perfectly adequate for what it actually does best. To think of it as a barrier or obstacle, or some kind of clumsy vehicle that could be better, is profoundly dumb.