Their function is to invite a degree of candor I would not offer even to my wife or my closest friend, and to respond in what seems to them the most appropriate way. That poets should want to write about dogs seems to me the most natural thing in the world, because-as all dog-owners will know-dogs are a stimulus for our most honest, unedited utterance. Poetry is in most cases an intimate thing, something that springs from deep within the psyche, and if it gets so far as to find words to incarnate the thought, that too is intimate, carried out in that unknown place where intellect and emotion come together and find articulation. I’m sure, if she were capable of speech, she would make learned observations-“Bad use of dactylic hexameter,” that kind of thing. As with everything else I say to Topsy, she understands every word, and indicates her approval of the poem by tapping me with her paw if she doesn’t like it, she walks away. Sometimes I find myself reciting poetry to Topsy, the smooth fox terrier from Texas who my wife rescued seven years ago.
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