"We are all haunted by images, both light and dark. ... That partly explains why they're so powerful, why we respond to them in a much more visceral way than we do to generalized abstractions."
"Put simply, though, an image in poetry is language that calls up a physical sensation, appealing to us at the level of any of our five senses. Images may be 'literal': the red kitchen chair in a dim corner of the room; ... Or they may be 'figurative', departing from the actual and stating or implying a comparison: the chair, red and shiny as fingernail polish."
"Magic. That's what an image should do, produce a bit of magic, a reality so real it is 'like being alive twice.'"
"Poets need to keep all five senses - and possibly a few more - on the continual alert, ready to translate the world through their bodies, to reinvent it in language. Images are a kind of energy, moving from outside to inside and back, over and over, a continual exchange."
"Images are the rendering of your bodily experience in the world; without them, your poems are going to risk being vague and imprecise, and they will fail to convey much to a reader."
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