Great Regulars: Around this time of year, those

who talk about poetry at all often talk about its "relevance to life," meaning the life we've all agreed is true. But the greatest power of poetry may be the wild, individual voice that's nothing like what we've thought of as life, before.

And about this time of year, those who talk about poetry at all will complain that a poem should be easy to understand, or why bother? But when we dumb poetry down, pretty soon we've eliminated the possibility of the deep engagement with the sometimes seemingly intractable language, which can change us.

from Fleda Brown: Traverse City Record-Eagle: On Poetry: A challenge for Poetry Month

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