Seeing things as they are

"Poetry allows us to see things as they are. It lets us see particulars being various. But, and this is its peculiarity, poetry lets us see things as they are anew, under a new aspect, transfigured, subject to a felt variation. The poet sings a song that is both beyond us yet ourselves. Things change when the poet sings them, but they are still our things: recognizable, common, low. We hear the poet sing and press back against the pressure of reality."

(Critchley, Michael, Things Merely Are, Abingdon: Routledge, 2005)