a solid basic premise

"The question of the value of poetry, then, is to be answered by saying that it springs from a basic human impulse and fulfills a basic human interest.  To answer the question finally, and not immediately, one would have to answer the qeustion as to the value of those common impulses and interests . . . As we enter into a study of poetry it is only necessary to see that poetry is not an isolated and eccentric thing, but springs from the most fundamental interests which human beings have."

-Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren,

Understanding Poetry

I must confess that, despite my long love for and commitment to T. S. Eliot, I have come to the conclusion that New Criticism is an incomplete method.  I will assert, however, that it is a necessary starting point:  to realize that poetry is on some level essential to human nature, and that, since human beings were created in the image and likeness of God, it is a fundamental impulse to create in some manner.

On a slightly different note, I was wondering today if all the poets--that is, those with poetic imaginations--are going into video games?  But when playing a video game, you're not really using your own imagination; you are entering into someone else's imagination, in a way that leaves no room for the sort of imaginative interaction that occurs in art.  I will have to think about it some more, but it's an interesting thought, at least.