Poetry

If you cringed at the word poetry, this quotation is especially for you. For those who dislike, do not understand, do not read poetry...and for those of you who love poetry, here is an invitation to a life-long journey. From David Orr's Beautiful and Pointless.


"...It would be useful to talk about poetry as if it were, for example, Belgium....Consider the way you’d be thinking about Belgium if you were planning a trip there.  You might try to learn a few useful phrases, or read a little Belgium history, or thumb through a guidebook in search of museums, restaurants, flea markets, or promising sounding bars.  The important things is that you’d know you were going to be confused, or at least occasionally at a loss, and you’d accept that confusion as part of the experience.  What you wouldn’t do, however, is become paralyzed with anxiety because you don’t speak fluent Flemish, or convinced that to really “get” Belgium, you need to memorize the Brussels phone book…from the introduction."