Figures of Thought: Speculations on the Meaning of Poetry & Other Essays [signed] [first edition]

poetry is a place where contradictions do not destroy one another... poetry is the sport of intellect...poetry is like a word containing opposites...poetry deals first with experience, and only derivatively with meaning; it attempts to catch the first evanescent flickering of thought across the surface of things. Suppose a rope. Suppose it to be under ensign and to be slowly and steadily moving in one direction, say from left to right. I am a fiber in the rope, one of many such, and my spiral existence is bounded by two points, B and C, along the length of the rope. At point A on the left I did not exist, and at a point D on the right I shall exist no more...When I inspect my experience as a fiber, it turns out to be an experience of tension; and of course you cannot have an experience of tension from one end alone, but you have to experience it as equal at both ends. In some sense, I am being pulled equally by past and by future, and it is not possible for me, as a fiber, to know which is which