Prose Books Are The Show

The Difference Between Prose Logic And Poetic Thought Is Simple. The Logician Uses Words As A Builder Uses Bricks, For The Unemotional Deadness Of His Academic Prose; And Is Always Coining Newer, Deader Words With A Natural Preference For Greek Formations. The Poet Avoids The Entire Vocabulary Of Logic Unless For Satiric Purposes, And Treats Words As Living Creatures With A Preference For Those With Long Emotional Histories Dating From Mediaeval Times. Poetry At Its Purest Is, Indeed, A Defiance Of Logic.

Haunted Gulp Down Your Wine, Old Friends Of Mine, Roar Through The Darkness, Stamp And Sing And Lay Ghost Hands On Everything, But Leave The Noonday's Warm Sunshine To Living Lads For Mirth And Wine. I Met You Suddenly Down The Street, Strangers Assume Your Phantom Faces, You Grin At Me From Daylight Places, Dead, Long Dead, I'm Ashamed To Greet Dead Men Down The Morning Street.

I Believe That Every English Poet Should Read The English Classics, Master The Rules Of Grammar Before He Attempts To Bend Or Break Them, Travel Abroad, Experience The Horrors Of Sordid Passion, And - If He Is Lucky Enough - Know The Love Of An Honest Woman.

Through The Window I Can See Rooks Above The Cherry-tree, Sparrows In The Violet Bed, Bramble-bush And Bumble-bee, And Old Red Bracken Smoulders Still Among Boulders On The Hill, Far Too Bright To Seem Quite Dead. But Old Death, Who Can't Forget, Waits His Time And Watches Yet, Waits And Watches By The Door.

The Function Of Poetry Is Religious Invocation Of The Muse; Its Use Is The Experience Of Mixed Exaltation And Horror That Her Presence Excites.