Reality.

Degas, Four Willow Sketches (detail), 1863

One key question that every reader of poetry or poet must face from time to time: Does the light, the poetic force without which no great poem could take shape, exist only in our imagination, in intense, blissful fantasies of inspiration, or does it have some counterpart in reality? Is it only a leap of imagination, a holiday from the ordinary, a festival of language, or does it uncover something that is usually concealed, but truly exists? Much depends on the answer to this question. If questioned, I myself would say, I have my doubts, I worry at times that this light is only Saint Elmo’s fire, glowing on the masts of our imagination. But ultimately, were I freed from my doubts, rooted in a pure and powerful place, I’d reply, what is most remarkable, wonderful (and rare) in poetry derives from reality, from a dimension that seldom reveals itself, from some radiant part of the planet.

Adam Zagajewski