“There are many people who are more poetic and more sensitive than some of our best poets. What makes the poet unique is that he has a spiritual memory. He can retain his thoughts and his feelings until he has clarified them in words, and this other people cannot do. This was the gift that had now been given … ” ~ Hans Christian Andersen, “The Magic Galoshes”
“His imagination was so alive, and he felt so tenderly toward the world. Without thinking, he bent down and picked a flower. It was only a daisy that had been growing in the grass, yet it was able to explain to him, in one minute, what it would have taken a botanist long hours to tell. The little flower related the myth of its birth, told of the power of the sun: how it forced its petals to unfurl and give off their lovely scent. This made the poet think of how our lives, too, were a struggle and that it was this that aroused so many of the feelings that we have. Sunlight and air, the flower explained, were her suitors, but sunlight was her favorite, and she obeyed it and always held her head up toward it. When it disappeared and night came, she closed her petals and slept in the air’s embrace. “The sunlight makes me beautiful,” said the daisy. “But it is the air that gives you breath, so you can live,” whispered the poet.”
~ Hans Christian Andersen, “The Magic Galoshes”
THE POETRY PLACE 
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