T. S. Eliot Murder in the Cathedral
This is one moment
But know that another
Shall pierce you with a sudden painful joy.
"I started to cry ...
So I took the book outside and read it all the way through, sitting on the steps in the usual northern gale.
... I had no one to help me, but the T. S. Eliot helped me.
So when people say that poetry is a luxury, or an option, or for the educated middle classes, and that it shouldn't be read at school because it is irrelevant, or any of the strange and stupid things that are said about poetry and its place in our lives, I suspect that the people doing the saying have had things pretty easy. A tough life needs a tough language - and that is what poetry is. That is what literature offers - a language powerful enough to say how it is.
It isn't a hiding place. It is a finding place. "
Jeanette Winterson 2011
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
Jonathan Cape, London
p. 39
http://www.jeanettewinterson.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.