Every poet has known anguish, wonderment, joy. The admiration we feel for a passage of great poetry is never inspired by its amazing cleverness, but by the fresh discovery it contains. If we thrill with delight on finding an adjective successfully linked with a noun never seen with it before, it is not its elegance that moves us, the flash of genius or the poet’s technical skill, but amazement at the new realities it has brought to light.
It is worth pondering over the potent effect of images such as cranes, a serpent or cicadas; a garden, a whore or the wind; an ox, or a dog....
Source: Poetry for Students, ©2012 Gale Cengage. All Rights Reserved. Full copyright.
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