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“…’Religion and politics are unnecessary to the culture  -or the individual- that has poetry.’

     ‘You really don’t believe in political solutions, do you?’

     ‘I believe in political solutions to political problems. But man’s primary problems aren’t political; they’re philosophical. Until humans can solve their philosophical problems, they’re condemned to solve their political problems over and over and over again. It’s a cruel, repetitious bore.’

     [She] thought she had the old goat this time … ‘Well, then, what are the philosophical solutions?’

     ‘Ha ha ho ho and hee hee. That’s for you to find out.’ She didn’t have him. ‘I’ll say this and no more: there’s got to be poetry. And magic … At every level. If civilization is ever going to be anything but a grandiose pratfall, anything more than a can of deodorizer in the shithouse of existence, then statesman are going to have to concern themselves with magic and poetry. Bankers are going to have to concern themselves with magic and poetry. Time magazine is going to have to write about magic and poetry. Factory workers and housewives are going to have to get their lives entangled in magic and poetry…’

     If [she] failed to comprehend completely, at least she no longer felt confused. Through a pinhole in the peace that dropped like dusk around them, she squeezed one last question. ‘Do you think such a thing can ever happen?’

     ‘If you understood poetry and magic, you’d know that it doesn’t matter.’

     The moon rose.

     The clockworks struck.

     A crane whooped. 

     She understood.

111a

     Poetry is nothing more than an intensification or illumination of common objects and everyday events until they shine with their singular nature, until we can experience their power, until we can follow their steps in the dance, until we can discern what parts they play in the Great Order of Love. How is this done? By fucking around with syntax.”

-Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues