from LANGUAGE IS SPEECH
What we try to do in the situation
of teaching or writ-ing or confessing or standing firm against those who
would cheat us or lie to us or kill us, what we try to do when we need
most to speak openly to our beloved or to those who believe in us, need
us, ask us for really necessary advice, is to try to be, in words, exact.
We must now speak. And we must now be exact. To what?
This is the moment you bring words
to Mind as the poet brings words to Mind. It is why we prize poetry, in
spite of all the sloppy examples of writing that go under the name of poetry.
We all know what we go to poetry for. We want the exact transmission of
Mind into Word.
[Lew Welch. "Language Is Speech." In Lew Welch: How I Work As a Poet & Other Essays. Donald Allen, ed. Grey Fox Press, 1983.]