‘When people say that poetry is a luxury, or an option, or
for the educated middle classes, or that it should not be read at school
because it is irrelevant, or any of the strange and stupid things that are said
about poetry and its place in our lives, I suspect that the people doing the
saying have had things pretty easy. A tough life needs a tough language – and that
it what poetry is. That is what literature offers – a language powerful enough
to say it how it is.
It isn’t a hiding place, it is a finding place.’
Jeanette Winterson, from Why Be Happy When You Could Be
Normal?
