Tuesday, July 9, 2013
Excerpt from Jeanette Winterson's memoir 'Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?'
" ... when people say that poetry is a luxury, or an option, or for the educated middle classes, or that it shouldn't be read at school because it is irrelevant, or any of the strange and stupid things that are said about poetry and its place in our lives, I suspect that the people doing the saying have had things pretty easy. A tough life needs a tough language - and that is what poetry is. That is what literature offers - a language powerful enough to say how it is. It isn't a hiding place. It is a finding place."
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Liked her first book,didn't like her second but I think she's come around again.
ReplyDeleteHey Irene, thanks for your comment. Maxine told me JW was in trouble lately with some feminists - do you know anything about that? I haven't read her novels in ages, but I remember one beautiful book in which light was continually described in terms of water, it was always pooling up, drenching, spilling, etc.
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