"It is difficult to get the news from poetry, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there." - William Carlos Williams

The first time I read this quote, my brain screeched to a halt. What does that mean???? But slowly, I figured out what Mr. Williams may have been trying to say. He does not mean that poetry kills people. This is a metaphor. He means that people who don't put in the effort to find this "news" within poetry, which is most likely the shallower and deeper meanings within the stanzas, lose something. They are missing or lacking in their mindsets, which causes them to "die" in a symbolic sense. The people who deny themselves the depth of poetry "starve," which we can all agree, is a miserable way to "die."