Does poetry help us to recover the value of words rather than well-meaning conventions?
It is a widespread problem. For example, on French television, when they talk about Arab communities in the banlieus they talk about “young people”… For the writer, this situation raises difficulties because you have to combine two situations. There is the harsher side of existence – disease and death – and the loftier reasons for poetry. In all writing, there is a clear tension between the “higher” world, so to speak, and everyday life. The former is part of the world of dreams and ideals, while the latter describes the more terrible or laughable aspects of the human condition. If you keep to one side or the other, you’ll be called a hypocrite. An elevated style, which is devoid of a sense of humour and full of indulgence for our ridiculous, cruel and imperfect world, would be similar to the quarries of Carrara in Tuscany, from where all the marble has been extracted and there is only whiteness left… An elevated style comes from a constant conversation between two spheres: the spi
