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April is the gateway to spring and also, appropriately, National Poetry Month. Poetry is a high art and an enormously important part of the Western intellectual tradition, but I must confess that, although I have a few favorite poets, I never became a dedicated reader. We were made to study poems at school, and to memorize and recite popular examples from an ancient book called
Palgrave’s Golden Treasury. This was a painful experience for young boys, especially when the verses were of a romantic nature, as they often were. Being compelled to read them out loud was acutely embarrassing, and I doubt whether one in a hundred of my schoolmates ever looked at a poem again.