If Dylan has one indefatigable character trait it’s that he’s not preoccupied with the small details. He cherry-picks the essence of the thing in question and tosses out the carcass. Poetry deals in the language of feeling, capturing and amplifying the fleeting sensations too unimportant for the day-to-day functions of consciousness. The practice of poetry is less a matter of form than a state of mind. Few saw that proposition last year when the Swedish academy announced the 2016 laureate.