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The Virtual World

Poetry, the imagination, and the creative life.

Saturday, July 07, 2007

Poetry and Healing at Harborview

From an article by Carol Smith at the PI.

The poet laureate of Harborview steps back and admires his handiwork -- a box tacked to the wall of the ICU waiting room. He stuffs it with a sheaf of poems. "Room to Room" is this particular poem's title. It's nominally about his dog, Walt, a 9-pound poodle who might as well weigh 1,200 pounds, for the way he rules the lives of his owners.

But "Room to Room" is really about love, about attending to the present. About anticipating death.
. . .
Posted by Peter at 7:05 AM
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Poetry can communicate before it is understood. ~T. S. Eliot

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Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history. ~ Plato

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A poet's work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep. ~ Salman Rushdie

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Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason. ~ Novalis

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Poetry is what maintains our capacity for contemplation and difficulty. — Carolyn Forche

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Poetry must have something in it that is barbaric, vast and wild. — Denis Diderot

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Sometimes something wants to be said, sometimes a way of saying wants to be used. — Paul ValĂ©ry

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