Great Regulars: To put this in the context

of our discussion today: poetry can speak decisively to power - perhaps most decisively to power - when it reveals truths by combining hearts with heads. When it presents all sides of an argument and allows us to make our own decisions about what's right and what's wrong. When it is democratic in its appeal to the imagination and our intellect.

from Andrew Motion: The Guardian: 'Poetry can speak decisively to power'

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And wherever I've lived, I've always placed two things at eye level--the tinted photograph of my mother as a girl, and an ancient blue-painted Indian figure I bought in Cawnpore years ago. They are my good luck charms; the presiding spirits of my mixed order and muddle.

from Andrew Motion: The Guardian: Writers' rooms: Andrew Motion

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