What do you feel poetry can accomplish that other forms can’t?
Poetry and metaphor are how we encode the human experience. The things that cannot be explained matter-of-factly or within prose - death, grieving, heart-break, profound joy, transcendent experience - can be given a home in the incredibly flexible form of poetry.
Last week, while backcountry camping, I witnessed a dragonfly exit its nymphal form, a miraculous happening that is so very, very strange: this ethereal creature with its glass-like green body and iridescent, glimmering wings climbs out of the plain-looking, slate-coloured, cockroach-like shell. There are even little threads, as if the dragonfly has been held inside the nymph form with a harness.
While watching this, I thought of its similarity to poetry with its ability to enrich the ordinary happenings of a human life with profound, transcendent meaning.
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