Your Murky Conscious

"Poetry is, after all, a technique of communication; it engages the conscious part of the mind as well as the murkier areas, and what a poet succeeds in communicating to others is at least as important as what he fails to resolve for himself."

"The Critical Path" Frye (283)

Occasionally amongst Frye's dry ramblings he says something rather poetic. I think the best part of reading poetry is when it engages the "murkier areas" of the mind. The conscious area is busy with making associations and past connections, but the other part of your mind is feeling and listening to the poetry for what it is, not what it is meant to be. The conscious area of the mind gives the poem its meaning and the murky area gives you its feeling.