Samuel Taylor Cooleridge—a poet with prophetic voice

PD

When I sit down to read a poem, I am brought out of myself and into a different vision of the world. Whether through meter, rhyme, metaphor, or even just line breaks, reading poetry encourages me to see the world in a different light. This is the claim Samuel Taylor Coleridge makes specifically for the poetry of his friend William Wordsworth, but it applies to all poetry.

Coleridge tells us that poetry works to awaken the “mind’s attention from the lethargy of custom, and directing it to the loveliness and the wonders of the world before us; an inexhaustible treasure, but for which in consequence of the film of familiarity and selfish solicitude we have eyes, yet see not, ears that hear not, and hearts that neither feel nor understand.” The best poetry does this for us: It awakens us to reality.

Read the rest at U.S. Catholic Magazine.