Three Cheers For Poetry

" When the chips are down,poetry still works. Maybe this is because I am not a poet and thus don't have to envy the person who wrote what I am reading. When my third marriage broke up, though , and shortly after the phase where all I could do was sit at the dining room table ripping photos out of the 'Who Weekly' and making
silly post cards, I wrote a poem myself. Not some ghastly quivering lyric but a long
ferocious narrative satire in strict metre and rhyme. The struggle with form became an obsession the likes of which I have never experienced, before or since. Better than romantic love. I hardly slept for fits of maniacal laughter. Every time I turned over in the night a ridiculous rhyme would click into place and I'd have to sit up and turn on the light and write it down. Now I know why all poets are insane."

Excerpt from the feel of steel by Helen Garner