It's one of the great paradoxes of Shakespeare that work written in poetic form (as even the prose is, really) is almost startling in its realism. How could this be? It's my belief that poetry, simultaneously the most overlooked and the most important form of literature, provides the answer. The type of thinking that it requires is what leads toward the profundities that it invariably finds. It's also my belief that the lack of respect and attention that it's receiving in our time is a cause for serious concern.

In previous posts, I've written about the fact that the high school curriculum has turned away from poetry and toward social studies. Well, here's a William Carlos Williams quote that summarizes the difference between the two perfectly: "It is difficult/ to get the news from poems/ yet men die miserably every day/ for lack of what is found there."