On Poetry

When I was on page 10, I loved this book, in no small part for this quote: “What evolutionary psychologists - and I - believe is that aesthetic preferences, those things we find beautiful, originate not in what renders life delightful or even endurable, but in what makes life possible.”

Then I hated it by page 13, when he puts poets on a pedestal above pop musicians. “Songwriters stir up a living tradition, poets make flowers grow in the air.” But I continued on, and by the end of the book I realized I had come to it with the expectation that it was a poetry primer, when it was in fact one man's experience and opinions about poetry. Once I understood that, and shed my preconceptions, I settled in and listened.

Overall not exactly my bag, but good enough and interesting enough that I finished it. If you like reading a poet waxing poetic about poetry, then you will probably like this book.