"Poetry is plucking at the heartstrings, and making music with them"
About this Quote
Poetry, in Gabor's telling, isn’t a stained-glass art form; it’s a piece of engineering built from feeling. “Plucking at the heartstrings” borrows the oldest metaphor in the book - emotion as an instrument - but he doesn’t leave it at sentiment. He adds the twist that matters: “making music with them.” Not just touching the heart, but tuning it, arranging it, pulling order out of a messy set of nerves and memories. For a scientist, that’s the real claim: poetry doesn’t merely express emotion, it structures it.
The intent reads like a quiet rebuttal to the modern habit of treating science and art as rival provinces. Gabor (an inventor who lived through war, exile, and the mid-century faith in technology) frames poetry as a kind of signal processing: raw affect becomes pattern; private ache becomes shareable form. The subtext is almost deflationary in a good way. Poetry isn’t mystical; it’s technique. “Plucking” implies a deliberate hand. Heartstrings don’t play themselves.
There’s also a warning hiding in the charm. Plucking can be manipulation as easily as it is beauty. If poems “make music” from our innards, they can also weaponize rhythm, repetition, and imagery - the same tools that power propaganda and advertising. Gabor’s metaphor flatters poetry, but it also pins it to responsibility: if you can play people, you can harm them. The line works because it grants art its emotional authority while insisting it’s crafted, not conjured.
The intent reads like a quiet rebuttal to the modern habit of treating science and art as rival provinces. Gabor (an inventor who lived through war, exile, and the mid-century faith in technology) frames poetry as a kind of signal processing: raw affect becomes pattern; private ache becomes shareable form. The subtext is almost deflationary in a good way. Poetry isn’t mystical; it’s technique. “Plucking” implies a deliberate hand. Heartstrings don’t play themselves.
There’s also a warning hiding in the charm. Plucking can be manipulation as easily as it is beauty. If poems “make music” from our innards, they can also weaponize rhythm, repetition, and imagery - the same tools that power propaganda and advertising. Gabor’s metaphor flatters poetry, but it also pins it to responsibility: if you can play people, you can harm them. The line works because it grants art its emotional authority while insisting it’s crafted, not conjured.
Quote Details
| Topic | Poetry |
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