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The anthropologist Jack Goody has claimed that phonetic
writing has greater civilizational potential than, say, the hieroglyphs of the
Egyptians or the Chinese characters. I most forcefully disagree with Goody
in this respect. I believe that writing and imagery are inseparably connected.
It is not merely the play of ideas that gives poetry its force, nor only the
play of sound in its spoken words, but also the play of the images of letters,
words and lines over a page. I believe we should enhance the imagery of
the written language, rather than weaken it.
