Johannes Goransson, in a Montevidayo blog comment-box, has written a dismissal of my distrust of metaphor; I've responded and hope I don't appear too annoyed (firm, sure; agressive, I hope not) in my trying to articulate why I find his response rather inadequate.  Relating to this: it seems some poets are really into dissing closely reading a text, and instead want to banish that kind of response and replace it with belles lettres; why oh why?  New Criticism does not have to be retrograde; on the contrary, it can communicate a ton, and it can allow a reader to really look at the text(s) in question, whereas belles lettres may end up saying far more about the responder than the work being responded to.  Too, belles lettres I think might be said to be predicated on authority (declarative syntax, minimal support with evidence for why a given claim is made) and I like essays which don't take authority for granted.