Somewhere in a poem by Mayakovsky he imagines his work being read in Heaven. The translation that I recall ends like this:

        And over my little book God will cry … 
        He will run with my poems in his hands through the sky 
        And all out of breath read them to his friends

If you’re lucky enough to have friends who share your taste in poetry then you’ll know exactly what he’s talking about: that moment of finding something that really does it for you, when you can’t wait to get on the phone or on Facebook—or, better still, to hot-foot it over in person like Mayakovsky’s ‘ideal reader’—and compound the pleasure by hearing it echoed in the pleasure of the person you’re sharing it with. Read on >