A writer-editor-teacher’s quote of the week 203

If you’ve ever been moved to tears by a song, if you have a favorite track you blast in the car with the windows rolled down in the sun, or if listening to a good song can change your mood, then you have a talent for poetry. And who does not? Not matter how educated or unsophisticated, we all know the pleasure of listening to song. The root of that pleasure may be a mystery, but we all know it’s true: that words wrestled into music have a charm and power ordinary language does not.

— from the “Introduction: What is Poetry?” in The Seagull Book of Poems, fourth edition, edited by Joseph Kelly

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