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"If we present a poem as something to be 'interpreted' and 'explained', as a kind of mental problem to be solved, like an extended crossword puzzle, we have missed the point. Reading poetry is an exercise in 'holding cognitive activity in the perceptual mode'. One must not search for meaning, but marinate oneself in the poem, so to speak, and let meaning come. If one does not treat the poem respectfully, as as if it had a life and an integrity on its own, one ends up constructing a surrogate poem as a plausible substitute for the real one: one that disconcerts you less, and merely gives you back your own familiar code of conduct and comprehension.

A poem that is grasped intellectually generates a certain cerebral satisfaction. But a poem with which one is really engaged creates a bodily frisson of undisclosed import; a visceral and aesthetic response."

in "Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind" by Guy Clark