If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire ever can warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way.
Emily Dickinson sets the bar high, in a letter to Thomas Higginson. See Thomas H. Johnson (Ed.), The Letters of Emily Dickinson, for more. (via itgivesitthew)