Another way of knowing …

… Poetry Daily Prose Feature - Dana Gioia: Poetry as Enchantment. (Hat tip, George Witte, himself a very fine poet.)

THE UNDERLYING MUSICAL NATURE of poetry is a primary reason why, as T. S. Eliot observed about Dante, 'Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.' Poetic language expresses itself as a totality, not as a transparent vessel for conceptual content—just as music and dance express meaning in ways that are physical and sensory rather than analytical.

Someone alert Steven Pinker.