I wasn’t reading poetry because my aim was to work my way through English Literature in Prose A—Z.But this was different. I started to cry.(…) The unfamiliar and beautiful play made things bearable that day, and the things it made bearable were another failed family–the first one was not my fault, but all adopted children blame themselves. The second failure was definitely my fault. I was confused about sex and sexuality, and upset about the straightforward practical problems of where to live, what to eat, and how to do my A levels. I had no one to help me, but the T.S. Eliot helped me. So when people say that poetry is a luxury, or an option, or for the educated middle classes, or that it shouldn’t be read at school because it is irrelevant, or any of the strange and stupid things that are said about poetry and its place in our lives, I suspect that the people doing the saying have had things pretty easy. A tough life needs a tough language–and that is what poetry is. That is what literature offers–a language powerful enough to say how it is. It isn’t a hiding place. It is a finding place. Jeanette Winterson
About This Quote

In this quote, David Foster Wallace points to the difference between writing for a young audience and writing for an older audience. The main difference is that the younger audience is more likely to understand the symbolism and metaphors that occur in a work of literature. This quote supports a point that my English teacher made in one of his lessons. He told us that we should write about our own experiences because it would help us connect with our readers on a more personal level. In this case, he was right because the only way to really understand the meaning of this quote is to have experienced something similar to what the author was going through at the time he wrote it.

Source: Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

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