invisible influence

The first time the actors rehearsed the scene in the bedroom, the bureaus were empty props. The director had them fill the drawers with their own underwear, bras, socks, jeans, t-shirts and such. In the next rehearsal, though none of the clothes were visible, the two actors lived the scene.

literary props

His was a house stager’s library.

place or prop

For Wallace Stevens place names were just props in the staging of the poem; they’re not real places.

uncovering oppressions

[Poetry] is the last possible domain in which we could preserve by language what we commonly deem to be reliable cognitive commonplaces, and last to appeal to solid, everyday perceptions. Poetry does not seek to negate these props. But it uncovers the oppressions of naïve experience and the stale pool of confirming constancies. (49)

—Justus Buchler, The Main of Light (Oxford Univ. Press, 1974)

visible wires

Images that are no more than props or stage-set scenery. Even if the images fly or hover, one can see the wires and pulleys.