Why is poetry important?
(I’m being a bit arrogant in trying to answer this one, but I’ll give it a shot!) To me, it seems that poetry engages with the world in a way that most accurately mimics the human mind, compared to the other art forms. We think symbolically and associatively. For example, when I use a microwave, I don’t go through all the steps of its function—it’s just a magic box that makes food warm. That “magic” isn’t all that far from poetic association. And when I think of a microwave, I’ve a few vivid images and names, like anchoring points; so the images and diction in a poem. I think we also experience narrative in a similarly loopy way. Time lives nonlinearly in memory, with gaps and distortions, even when we configure it chronologically.
I also love that poetry doesn’t need any advanced technology or material goods; it doesn’t need a crew. It doesn’t have “originals” you need to fly to New York or a big city to see. In that sense, poetry is a very free art.
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