A Poet Reflects

chasingtailfeathers:

“All words, then, belonging to the inner world of the mind, are of the imagination, are originally poetic words. The better, however, any such word is fitted for the needs of humanity, the sooner it loses its poetic aspect by commonness of use. It ceases to be heard as a symbol, and appears only as a sign. Thus thousands of words which were originally poetic words owing their existence to the imagination, lose their vitality, and harden into mummies of prose. Not merely in literature does poetry come first, and prose afterwards, but poetry is the source of all the language that belongs to the inner world, whether it be of passion or of metaphysics, of psychology or of aspiration. No poetry comes by the elevation of prose; but the half of prose comes by the “massing into the common clay” of thousands of winged words, whence, like the lovely shells of by-gone ages, one is occasionally disinterred by some lover of speech, and held up to the light to show the play of colour in its manifold laminations.”

— George MacDonald, “The Imagination: Its Function and Culture,” from The Imagination and Other Essays (Lothrop Publishing, 1883) 

(Source: settledthingsstrange)

“Poetry is a way of knowledge, but most poetry tells us what we already know.”

—Charles Simic, from section III of The Monster Loves His Labyrinth (Copper Canyon Press, 2008)

hsaptus:

“Poetry leads to the same place as all forms of eroticism—to the blending and fusion of separate objects. It leads us to eternity, it leads us to death, and through death to continuity. Poetry is eternity; the sun matched with the sea.”

—Georges Bataille, from Death and Sensuality (City Lights Publishers, 1986)

(Source: indigenousdialogues)

Between what you most want to say and what you are most afraid to
say is your emotional field, but,

not the emotion, the image that triggers the emotion.

—Sina Queyras, from “Tightrope” in Poetry (v.CCII, no.1, April, 2013)

I have a word for it—
the way the surface waited all day
to be a silvery pause between sky and city—
which is elver.

—Eavan Boland, opening lines to “Cityscape,” from Poetry (v.CCII, no.1, April 2013)

“Don’t think regret is 20/20.  Regret is myopic.  Hope is astigmatic.  Truth is blind.”

—William Logan, from “The Nude Stays Nude” in Poetry (v. CCII, no. 1, April 2013)

electrichoney:

“I believe poetry is a primal impulse within us all. I believe we are all capable of it and furthermore that a small, often ignored corner of us positively yearns for it. I believe our poetic impulse is blocked by the false belief that poetry might on the one hand be academic and technical and on the other formless and random. It seems to many that while there is a clear road to learning music, gardening or watercolours, poetry lies in inaccessible marshland: no pathways, no signposts, just the skeletons of long-dead poets poking through the bog and the unedifying sight of living ones floundering about in apparent confusion and mutual enmity. Behind it all, the dread memory of classrooms swollen into resentful silence while the English teacher invites us to ‘respond’ to a poem.

For me, the private act of writing poetry is songwriting, confessional, diary-keeping, speculation, problem-solving, storytelling, therapy, anger management, craftsmanship, relaxation, concentration and spiritual adventure all in one inexpensive package.”

— Stephen Fry, from The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within (Gotham, 2006)

(Source: ephemeron)

oldmanflower:

“Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It’s that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that’s what the poet does.”

—Allen Ginsberg

(Source: outofprintclothing)