Norman MacCaig: A Man in My Position
excerpt from video interview
“poetry is the most precise way of using words…reading poetry, never mind trying to write, hones your wits when it comes to examining the true meaning of words, because it makes you recognize the emotional significance of a word not just the intellectual significance… and words have emotional significance…
dangerously so…
listen to politicians or preachers. They use one of the big dirty words like freedom, liberty, democracy, etc. and they get penny-in-the-slot responses… not thinking of the meaning of words, just having emotional responses…and it is an awful dangerous thing…I think it is the source of most problems in the world. Not just country to country but people to people, husband to wife… all these problems primarily due to an emotional response.
