How Carl Sandburg’s Quote “Poetry Is an Echo, Asking a Shadow to Dance” Is Related to James K Baxter’s Poems; the Bay and the Cave.

How Carl Sandburg’s quote “Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance” is related to James K Baxter’s poems; The Bay and The Cave.    
Carl Sandburg says in his quote “Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance”. In his quote he refers to the ‘echo’ as recreating the narrative voice’s experience just like how an echo recreates someone’s voice however an echo doesn’t recreate a real voice it recreates simply a reflection so the readers are just experiencing the narrative voice’s echo i.e. a representation of the initial experience where the narrative voice doesn’t talk about the real experience but merely a reflection of his experience, a reflection which only gives enough information for the reader to ponder upon, The ‘shadow’ word is used to refer to the hidden part of the reader; his closed mind, where the creative and emotional thoughts are well-kept. The ‘dance’ word Sandburg uses to relate it to a way of flourishing the mind with creative and emotional thoughts. So basically through this quote, Sandburg is trying to tell us that poetry is actually a reflection of the narrative voice’s experience (echo) which the poet creates through the poem’s content, thematic ideas, and the language structure and form, these things cause the reader to get enough information to open up his closed mind (shadow) and flourish the mind with creative and deep thoughts (dance) about the subject and content of the poem. This quote can be expressed through a thorough analysis of The Bay and The Cave by James K Baxter.
James K Baxter was a New Zealand writer and poet, who wrote an anthology of brilliant poems and The Bay and The Cave are examples of his poems. The Bay is about a middle aged man’s experience (echo) who returns to a bay where he went as a child – reflecting on that happy time and his present state. The major themes in The Bay are about losing the connection with nature in adulthood and how social conformity has restricted us to do what we want as it could be seen...