“Much of the magical effect that poetry gives of rendering everything it touches pellucid comes from the necessity of compression that it imposes. The impossibility of pausing in poetry as long as may be needed to make sense clear causes many a set of words actually deficient in linguistic workmanship to pass for an eloquent brevity.”

—  Laura Riding Jackson

"The Promise of Words" in London Review of Books, Vol. 17, No. 17, p. 23

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Laura Riding Jackson 42
poet, critic, novelist, essayist and short story writer 1901–1991

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