at the heart of things

The image is the essential poem at the heart of things.

—C.G. Jung

Tagore

Thirteen years ago, I had the slightly terrifying honor of talking with the venerated and mellifluous Rabindranath Tagore. We were speaking of the poetry of Baudelaire. Someone recited "La Mort des amants," that sonnet so appointed with beds, couches, flowers, chimneys, mantelpieces, mirrors, and angels. Tagore listened intently, but at the end he exclaimed, "I don't like your furniture poet!"

—Jorge Luis Borges, from a review of Tagore's Collected Poems and Plays

mew images

We are all responsible to work for a better society, and there are two ways [to do this]: theoretically and practically. Poetry cannot work in practical ways, but it can give new images to the world and new relationships between words and things. This is its responsibility.

—Adonis (Syrian poet Ali Ahmed Said Esber)

http://www.praguepost.com/tempo/1547-prague-writers-festival-poet-paints-arab-world-laments-fall-of-poetry-in-west.html