A transmission figure is a metaphor or image that represents the communication or conveyance of meaning, emotion, or information through poetry. This figure conceptualizes the poem as a medium for transmission, suggesting movement of content from poet to reader. Transmission figures can be used to explore questions about how successfully meaning travels through poetic language, what transformations occur in transit, or how readers receive and interpret transmitted content. While such metaphors risk oversimplifying poetic communication, they provide concrete ways to think about poetry's function as a vehicle for sharing experience, ideas, and emotions across the distance between writer and reader.

transmission figure|A metaphor for the act of passing ideas, emotions, or messages; imagery may include pipelines, signals, or waves.