Guitarists, Guitars, Guys, and Gals

In "The Guitarist Tunes Up," Cornford uses figurative language to blur the line between a literal situation (a guitarist tuning his guitar) and an imagined situation (two lovers embracing).

By creating a clear image of the guitarist in beginning, Cornford is able to transfer elements of that real, literal image to an imagined image later in the poem in a very seamless way with simile.

In the end, the poem's final word, "play," operates simultaneously on literal and figurative levels and the entire poem becomes a kind of extended metaphor for the relationship between lovers.

Not bad for an eight-line poem.

• Title: The title sets the scene. We are told, in no uncertain terms, what is going to be discussed in this poem: a guitarist tuning his guitar.
• Lines 1-2: The poem's first two lines reinforce the title. We naturally associate the "he" in line 1 with the guitarist from the title and the "instrument" with (duh) the guitar. Plus, the guitarist is described bending over the guitar. It is a very familiar pose (think music videos, dorm rooms, 5th period jazz band) that we can easily picture in our minds. 
• Lines 5-7: When Cornford uses the simile, "as a man with a loved woman might, / inquiring with delight," to elaborate on how the guitarist bends over to listen to his guitar as he tunes it, it's easy for us to transfer the musician's attentive bend over his instrument to a man bending to hear "slight essential things" from his lover.
• Line 8: With the image of the lover bending to hear whispered words from his beloved fresh in our minds, the last line takes a potentially racy turn. We picture the "he and she" as the figurative lovers and their "play" as, well, the kind of sweet music lovers make. At the same time, the he is the musician, echoing the he in line 1, the she is the instrument, and the play is whatever piece the musician begins after tuning the guitar. Cornford manages to get the literal and the figurative all mixed up together in just eight little lines, but, in the end, it's kind of a fun tangle.