“If poetry represents, as Ezra Pound maintained, ‘the most concentrated form of verbal expression,’ it achieves its characteristic concision and intensity by acknowledging how words have been used before. Poems do not exist in isolation but share and exploit the history and literature of the language in which they are written. Although each new poem seeks to create a kind of temporary perfection in and of itself, it accomplishes its goal by recognizing the reader’s lifelong experience with words, images, symbols, stories, sounds, and ideas outside of its own text. By successfully employing the word or image that triggers a particular set of associations, the poem can condense immense amounts of intellectual, sensual, and emotional meaning into a single line or phrase.”
Dana Gioia in Can Poetry Matter?, “The Poet in the Age of Prose”, p 221.