Poetry as Enchantment

Book excerpt: Dana Gioia, one of America's leading poet-critics, explains why poetry exists and why we need it in this sparkling collection of essays. More personal than any of Gioia's earlier works, Poetry as Enchantment reflects a lifetime of thought and experience. Gioia, the author of Can Poetry Matter?, talks about poetry in a radically different way than it is currently being taught or discussed. In the title essay, he explains that poetry is speech raised to the level of song, and though poetry may often be misunderstood as intellectual, it moves us the way music does. Poetry charms its readers, creating a heightened experience of attention. It addresses readers in the fullness of their humanity, simultaneously speaking to the mind, emotions, imagination, memory, and physical senses. Without academic jargon, Poetry as Enchantment relates literature to the questions of life.