I Have A High Guilt Quotient. A

You Have To Imagine It Possible Before You Can See Something. You Can Have The Evidence Right In Front Of You, But If You Can't Imagine Something That Has Never Existed Before, It's Impossible.

If The Poem Is So Moving That Even If You Have No Experience In That Particular Setting Be It 1920's Harlem Let's Say. You Still Are So Moved That You Can Put Yourself In That Position. That Means That The Writer Has Managed To Go Beyond The Personal And Touch The Humanity In All Of Us And It's Really A Blast To Read It Because I Realize How That This Does Hold True For The Truly Great Poems.

By Making Us Stop For A Moment, Poetry Gives Us An Opportunity To Think About Ourselves As Human Beings On This Planet And What We Mean To Each Other.

From The Time I Began To Read, As A Child, I Loved To Feel Their Heft In My Hand And The Warm Spot Caused By Their Intimate Weight In My Lap; I Loved The Crisp Whisper Of A Page Turning, The Musky Odor Of Old Paper And The Sharp Inky Whiff Of New Pages. Leather Bindings Sent Me Into Ecstasy. I Even Loved To Gaze At A Closed Book And Daydream About The Possibilities Inside.

The Poetry That Sustains Me Is When I Feel That, For A Minute, The Clouds Have Parted And I've Seen Ecstasy Or Something