poetry v. poetic

"There's an inexplicable reverence for the narcotic adjective 'poetic', whose arrival on the scene heralds the death of thought ... Perhaps this is because of poetry's status as prose's alibi, so that poetry can function as the unexplored but sanctified repository for whatever irrational elements prose may suspect it harbours within its own confines, and may wish to evacuate."

- Denise Riley, in The Words of Selves (or, as Riley alternatively proposes The Swords of Elves), p.18-19. [pub. Stanford University Press, 2000]



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