Erica Jong - The Poet as a Feeler of Pain lyrics

What makes a poet? Many have tried to guess. Is it a voice like a conduit, a plainspokenness to grief, the hairs of the head dancing on end, the blood swarming with the voices of all those who have died, will die, & will also be born? Is it a catch in the throat that awakens the eyes, is it in the eyes themselves or is it something in the heart? I think it is pain- an openness to pain, so that the least leaf cuts the hand & the smallest tear cuts the cheek like jagged crystal, so that the world is a sick infant & the poet its mother, praying, crooning, promising to be good if only the cure takes. There is, of course, no cure. Poetry does not cure the poet & the poet does not cure the world. Usually he catches the world's diseases & dies even before his time. But against all odds & all indifference, another one is born. The world must have someone to feel its pain & speak of it. The poet is that mouth.