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by jfengel 1888 days ago
It's true. Poets don't write to be understood. They write to be felt.

A single sentence like that is rarely good poetry, and it doesn't make me feel all that much. But it wouldn't be any more interesting rewritten as "All of the laws of physics are expressed in a glass of wine just as much as in the rest of the universe", if that's what was "meant". It's just vapid.

But if it stuck in Feynman's mind, and yours, it means the poet was on to something. That's the important part. The poet said a thing and it connected, just as Feynman's nude drawings connected with him. They don't need to "mean" anything more than exactly what they are.