Edgar Morin frames life as a clash between prose and poetry. Poetry becomes love, collective friendship, fascination, and emotional intensity, while prose carries boredom and monotony. Knowing Morin is now a centenarian, the philosopher invites readers to strive for a poetic life and argues that those truly intent on living fully must experience existence through harmonious sonnets or rhymes. The opposite path is surrender to dullness. The author appreciates prose as a genre, and Pessoa’s intensity resonates, serving as a personal metaphor. It is the light and dark duality—taking risks versus yielding to fear, a carpe diem stance contrasted with a measured approach. Morin’s vivid portrayal of life radiates poetry in its purest form, and the narrator resolves to embrace this literary sensibility moving forward.
Morin belongs to the anonymity of modern cities, where pressures can threaten well-being and diminish quality of life by fostering loneliness. He critiques the rigid, almost algorithmic rhythm of today’s routines and the burden of constant obligations. Think of emergency medical appointments, pharmacy shifts, minutes spent paying fines, SSI inquiries, or mobile banking. The scene appears as a constant countdown: traffic lights flashing seconds left to cross, schedules squeezing every moment. Relaxation seems conspicuously absent, and Morin’s view is clear—the overall quality of coexistence suffers without poetry in daily life.
While the author finds meaning in Morin’s reflections, a real estate advertisement interrupts the moment. It promises a privileged lifestyle spread across hundreds of floors, with 24-hour security, a swimming pool, a gym, a tennis court, meeting and celebration halls, green spaces, and broad gardens for children. Reading the pitch leads to three realizations. First, the prices reveal the advertiser is not the target audience. Second, a new urbanism pattern emerges, promoting homogeneous mini-cities fenced off from the city’s resources, replacing public spaces with private security. Parks, pedestrian streets, cultural centers, and sports facilities fade from the picture. The third realization is a sense of prose creeping back, a critique of car-centered streets, sprawling malls, and fast-food hubs that seem to overshadow community life and public life. In this frame, Morin’s poetry finds a counterpoint in the built environment, hinting at how city design can shape relationships and shared moments.
As the reader considers the power of urban planning on everyday life, Benedetti’s verses appear, offering a counterbalancing sense of beauty. The narrator notes a third conclusion: poetry should surround daily existence. The longing is simple and clear—poetry around the person, in ordinary moments, in the way streets unfold and people gather, speak, and interact. The sense that life becomes richer when spaces invite conversation and collective experience remains strong, even amid the pressures of modern living. The reader leaves a moment of quiet contemplation about how to cultivate such spaces in cities, workplaces, and homes, where meaningful connections can flourish without surrendering practical needs. The heart of the message endures: poetry can humanize everyday life, even within the busiest urban environments, and it can help people breathe a little easier in a fast-paced world.
The experience of reading Morin’s thoughts and Benedetti’s poetry lingers, guiding the narrator toward a deliberate choice: to keep poetry close. The intent is not merely aesthetic but practical—seeking poetry as a daily practice that enriches perception, strengthens empathy, and motivates humane choices in crowded, modern settings. It becomes a personal vow to acknowledge the tension between prose and poetry and to let the poetic impulse steer decisions about where to live, how to spend time, and with whom to share experiences. In a world that often favors efficiency over meaning, preserving room for poetry can feel like a quiet revolution that re-centers human connection and vitality. The narrator continues to explore this balance, reading Benedetti while staying alert to the ways urban life can either cultivate or erode beauty and companionship in everyday routines, cultural rituals, and shared moments with others.