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Why I write poetry

by Andrew Motion

Poetry is at once a very primitive and a very subtle thing – an expression of our fundamental and passionate delight in rhythms, sounds and patterns, and also of our more sophisticated need for ingenuity. It is the form which puts us most deeply in touch with ourselves, which connects us with the wider world, and which also helps us prove our sense of the numinous.

Comments

Brilliant shelled nut, though Euterpe might have something to say! Wouldn't 'share' be better than prove? And wouldn't Athene add something about our fascination with ideas?

Ian Ferguson
17 February 2010

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