Why sometimes it's good to run away from your problems

"... Heaney — recalling the physical fact that the longer the lever, the less the force necessary 'to move the mass and get the work going' — reminds us that geographical, temperamental, and cultural differences, whether small or immense, can provide a stance from which to move our subject matter with greater clarity. At times, he suggests, what is 'intractable when wrestled with at close quarters becomes tractable when addressed from a distance.'"

From Lisa Russ Spaar's introduction to her new anthology, "All That Mighty Heart: London Poems."