"I placed one word beside another and finally with a great deal
of effort managed to create a whole sentence--naturally not one
that 'meant something' but one that was composed of word-
nuances. It was the hidden meaning that I was seeking--a kind
of Alchimie du Verbe. One word has its meaning and another
has its own, but when they are brought together something
strange happens to them: they have an in-between connotation
at the same time as they retain their original individual meanings . . . Poetry is this very tension-filled relationship between the words, between the lines, between meanings."

--Gunnar Ekelöf, tr. Auden & Sjöberg