It was language I loved, not meaning. I liked poetry better when I wasn't sure what it meant. Eliot has said that the meaning of the poem is provided to keep the mind busy while the poem gets on with its work -- like the bone thrown to the dog by the robber so he can get on with his work. Is beauty a reminder of something we once knew, with poetry one of its vehicles? Does it give us a brief vision of that 'rarely glimpsed bright face behind/ the apparency of things'? Here, I suppose, we ought to try the impossible task of defining poetry. No one definition will do. But I must admit to a liking for the words of Thomas Fuller, who said: 'Poetry is a dangerous honey. I advise thee only to taste it with the Tip of thy finger and not to live upon it. If thou do'st, it will disorder thy Head and give thee dangerous Vertigos. P.K. Page
About This Quote

William Wordsworth said, “I have been long disgusted with this poetic madness.” In other words, poets have a tendency to look for a meaning in a piece of poetry that is not there. They try to find a message in a piece of art that is not meant to have one. When poets look for hidden meanings they miss out on what makes art so beautiful. In his poem "The World is Too Much With Us," William Shakespeare says, "A little more than kin and kind." This is an excellent description of what makes poetry so beautiful. It's the feeling you get from poetry that you can't get from science textbooks or government speeches.

Source: The Filled Pen: Selected Nonfiction

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