Yes, I think poetry does have a magical element to it in terms of slipping past the intellect. I think it’s because our defenses are down when we read poetry in a way that they aren’t when we read prose. There is surprise in poetry with the image, or with the last line that you’re not looking for. Prose rarely offers the same kind of surprise, and as a result, it’s touched your heart before you even knew it was coming. There’s always the “Aha!” There’s a catching of the breath that happens, and I hear it all the time from audiences when I read. They’re constantly caught off-guard, and poetry does that. Before you’ve had a chance to think about it, you’re weeping, or you’re taken back to that moment in your own childhood that you didn’t even know was so close to the surface. That doesn’t happen very much in prose, but it happens all the time with poetry.
