Yeah you’re so right. Reading great poetry, even if it’s sad or nightmarish stuff, somehow mysteriously makes you happier. I think poems are the best thing in the world apart from music. They can really feel like an exploration and adventure. It’s like discovering an underwater sea cave where someone buried lost treasure hundreds of years ago which you can still find if only you look with a pure heart. But it’s also like each poem is a cupboard where every time you read you store away different imagery and dreams, and as you go back to the same poem over the years and discuss it with friends ect, the cupboard gets richer and better stocked. It’s amazing sometimes when I look at a poem we studied years ago at school the same images (they’re like imaginary paintings) that I first made up in my head to fit the poem come back – just like remembering a dream or past life!
I haven’t read anything by swift yet, but still remember from the first time I heard ‘bright star’ by keats when I was about 12
[“The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors---“ ect ]
… exactly how I imagined (a magical gallery of paintings) a star looking down on the night-time tropical oceans and forests and mountains and polar bears on the ice caps to the ends of the earth. |