Immersion

A poem needs understanding through the senses. The point of diving in a lake is not immediately to swim to the shore, but to be in the lake, to luxuriate in the sensation of water. You do not "work the lake out." It is an experience beyond thought. (John Keats, Bright Star)

I love the sensation of being fully immersed in literature. The feeling of breathing poetry. Of sliding between words. Of existing in spaces, in the pauses created by punctuation. Of rolling a word around in my mouth to see how it tastes. Of weighing a turn of phrase in my hands, allowing my fingers to brush against the edges of words, to catch on the corners and glide along the curves. I love it when I feel as if my pores ooze literature. When my first response to any situation, anything I am told, is to quote a poem or cite a novel. This is when I feel most alive. This is when I feel the most like me.