A very interesting blog by Niall O'Sullivan which reminds me of Jeanette Winterson's Art Objects, which I was reading just yesterday:

'True art, when it happens to us, challenges the "I" that we are. A love parallel would be just; falling in love challenges the reality to which we lay claim, part of the pleasure of love and part of its terror, is the world upside down. We want, and we don't want, the cutting edge, the upset, the new views.'

I could carry on quoting her, as it's quite brilliantly fresh, twenty years after its publication. Whatever your views on Winterson, she sure can write.

Anyway, back to the topic.

O'Sullivan's blog post resonates. I'm weary of saying what kind of poetry I like or don't like since it's an ever changing process, but if were to, I think 'poetry that surprises or weirds me out' could be an apt one. That or poetry that taps into somewhere in my brain I'd forgotten. As Winterson puts it 'can remind me of feelings, thinkings, I did not even know I had forgot'.

I have been feeling a certain growing allergy towards 'anecdotal' poetry, poems that give us a straightforward glimpse into a moment with nothing else to chew on. There's something wonderful about struggling, really struggling, to explain why you find a poem quite marvelous, because you haven't fully, cannot fully, analyse it.

I think this is why poetry, more than any other form of literature, appeals to me so much. I love the way it escapes easy definitions, how, yes, even after wading through a rack of pristine uniforms, I find a surprisingly beguiling outfit made out of unknown fabric.