What Use Poetry? Featured Book: Tracings by Carolyn Howard-Johnson

In the Red Engine Press January 2006 newsletter, "Yardspinners and Wordweavers," Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of Tracings, writes:

"Auden thought the purpose of poetry is to disenchant. That, my reader, may be why I am not much for rhyme or pretty, though I do like food images, especially sweets. I prefer melancholy, wistful and if a song is sung, let it discord to keep the reader alert make him reconsider. Nursery rhymes are for nurseries, sunsets to be viewed firsthand from a bluff, preferably while holding hands with someone handsome. The tendons of the best poetry are politics, introspection, and the abominable snowmen among us tempered--occasionally--by a look back at where we've been. Oh, and irony. That's better than tiramisu and latt