Anecdotal Evidence: `An Impossibly Small Space'

Anecdotal Evidence: `An Impossibly Small Space'
Excerpt:
On Friday, the day I read Toretta’s post, I happened upon a contemporary poet new to me, Joseph Harrison, author of Someone Else’s Name (2004) and Identity Theft (2008). In “On Rereading Some Lines of Poetry,” a rare poem about poetry that isn’t navel-gazing, he reminds us of what Michael Oakeshott writes in “The Voice of Poetry in the Conversation of Mankind”: “It is with conversation as with gambling, its significance lies neither in winning nor in losing, but in wagering.” He reminds us why we started reading poetry in the first place:

“I must believe you see these shadowed lines
Lead back to other lines, and understand
The heart that’s faithful to its origins
Sits like an open book, for all to read
Who care to, closely, word by chosen word.
Or do the words choose us? These words chose me
And made me who I am. So let the lines
That speak most deeply to your inmost thoughts
Shine on you like the moon, and shape your soul.”