The Point of Poetry

The natural world is as natural a source of inspiration and subject matter for poets as is love or loss.

Just because you can write something doesn’t mean you can read it.

Poetry is undoubtedly best read aloud.

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

represents in art a profoundly sincere attempt by individuals to grapple with the inexorable conditions of human life

The first Elizabethans took poetry, like religion, seriously.

The poem ignites something in you about in the world you personally inhabit, the space you occupy in history and the people you have shared irreplaceable hours with.

poetry was something you needed to hear aloud and listen to.

Read all 154 and you will struggle to find one that isn’t vigorously trying to convince its recipient about something or other.

Shakespeare’s sonnets are like little experiments in persuasion, tiny windows into someone else’s relationships