There’s an intriguing quote attributed to Giovanni Pico della Mirandola related in a review of the new book The Grammar of Angels:
“Voices that mean nothing have more magical power than those that mean something.”
(“The Grammar of Angles by Edward Wilson-Lee Review — spellbound”)
This accords with the way empty or anti-rational rhetoric seems more effective at manipulation than meaningful or rational language. From anti-factual political demagoguery to stultified religious preaching, maybe what’s at work is simply the visceral gesture of the voice at work on the psyche.
It also agrees with my poetry-reading experience. The more carefully my poem constructs a meaning, the harder it seems to be to deliver in spoken form, and get a response from an audience. But a surreal poem that verges on the absurd will produce more of a response somehow. The word is weird!