I was listening to the Red Priest ensemble hammering Vivaldi (but I was enjoying it well enough) and it prompted a line of thought that ended in the interrelationship of the arts. Many good poems are effective because, in large part, of their fusion of musicality, dance, and words (some add the visual experience of the arrangement of printed words). While listening to the Red Priest, it occurred to me that we can use our bodies as musical instruments, e.g. in a kind of dancing that is a kind of music—not just metaphorically speaking, I think. It’s a kinetic music for the dancer, and a visual and kinetic music for a viewer. If the dancer makes sound by clapping or stomping, the more usual kind of musical element is added. (Clearly music does not consist only of sound.)
I say this in this context as a way of suggesting that we want to be aware that when we are writing or reading poetry well, we are not practicing just a single art. And again, I don’t think this is merely metaphor, it’s a physiological and imaginal phenomenon, having something to do with the way the brain functions—and on through the rest of the body (mine, for instance).