Dylan Thomas on poetry

I've been studying Dylan Thomas and his poetry for a paper I'm writing, about his play "Under Milk Wood." In my reading today I stumbled upon this quote which I love:

You can tear a poem apart to see what makes it technically tick, and say to yourself, when the works are laid out before you, the vowels, the consonants, the rhymes or rhythms, 'Yes, this is it. This is why the poem moves me so. It is because of the craftsmanship.' But you're back again where you began.

You're back with the mystery of having been moved by words. The best craftsmanship always leaves holes and gaps in the works of the poem so that something that is not in the poem can creep, crawl, flash, or thunder in.

- Dylan Thomas, "Notes on the Art of Poetry"

A thought

The real value of poetry lies
not in expressing a moment
but
in expressing the thing of which
the moment itself
is but an expression.

The Christian Imagination edited by Leland Ryken

For the upcoming CM Conference, I'm going to be reading The Christian Imagination edited by Leland Ryken; they've also listed an article by Alfie Khon about education (Tim and I read that last night) and a short story by Tolkein. The Christian Imagination is a collection of articles by various authors like Tolkein, George MacDonald, Francis Schaeffer about "the relationship between imagination, belief and words." I'll post a very brief synopsis after each chapter. You can see the list of readings they'll be doing on their blog.

The conference is in a couple months. I'm also reading The Lord of the Rings with our local CM mom's group. I've finished the first book, The Fellowship of the Ring, and I'm re-reading it - partly because I want a second look, and partly because we have a six-week schedule for each book and I don't want to get ahead.

My project of proofreading Parents' Review articles has been neglected the last few weeks.