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A Poet Reflects

Posts tagged The Poet's Notebook:

December 22, 2012 with 67 notes
        tags: Donald Hall. The Poet's Notebook. pleasure of writing.

“The pleasure of writing is that the mind does not wander, any more than it does in orgasm,—and writing takes longer than orgasm. I can’t stand movies because I cannot [pay] close continual attention. While I watch baseball I read a volume of letters between pitches.  Even reading a good book—which is the third best thing—my mind sometimes wanders; or I watch myself reading. When I write I never watch myself writing; I only am the struggle to find or make the words. I am fundamentally boring with a boring mind until, I hope, the word with its sounds and associations becomes a texture in front of me for working over, for shaping, for cutting, and for flying on.”

—Donald Hall, taken from The Poet’s Notebook: Excerpts from the Notebooks of 26 Contemporary American Poets, edited by Stephen Kuusisto, Deborah Tall, and David Weiss (W. W. Norton & Company, 1995)

April 21, 2012 with 61 notes
        tags: advice. contemplatives. Garrett Hongo. poet's life. The Poet's Notebook.

“The trick is to make the memory, (or) the imagined experience, stronger than anything else in one’s consciousness, to make the “pretend game” the one that counts … Tricks of the mystics and contemplatives should prove handy: simplify one’s life; spend lots of time in solitude; avoid chaotic, undisciplined experiences until one is prepared to encounter them; quell the violent passions (jealousy, envy, malice).  I’d add one dictum probably not present in any handbook for contemplatives—cultivate a refined sensuousness.”

—Garrett Hongo, journal entry from The Poet’s Notebook: Excerpts from the Notebooks of 26 American Poets, edited by Stephen Kuusisto, Deborah Tall, and David Weiss (W. W. Norton & Co., 1995)

April 12, 2012 with 32 notes
        tags: last poem. Lisa Mueller. The Poet's Notebook. Yehudi Amichai.
“Yehudi Amichai demands that every poem should be the last poem, written as if it contained the last thing the poet would ever say, shaped to contain a condensation of all messages of his or her life.  It should be a virtual will.” Entry from Lisel Mueller’s journal, The Poet’s Notebook: Excerpts from the Notebooks of 26 American Poets, edited by Stephn Kuusisto, Deborah Tall, and David Weiss (W. W. Norton & Co., 1995)

“Yehudi Amichai demands that every poem should be the last poem, written as if it contained the last thing the poet would ever say, shaped to contain a condensation of all messages of his or her life.  It should be a virtual will.”

Entry from Lisel Mueller’s journal, The Poet’s Notebook: Excerpts from the Notebooks of 26 American Poets, edited by Stephn Kuusisto, Deborah Tall, and David Weiss (W. W. Norton & Co., 1995)

April 7, 2012 with 20 notes
        tags: frivolous. Mary Oliver. mockingbird. The Poet's Notebook.
“Who would tell the mockingbird his song is frivolous, since it lacks words?” —Mary Oliver, one of her notebook entries in The Poet’s Notebook: Excerpts from the Notebooks of 26 American Poets, edited by Stephen Kuusisto, Deborah Tall, and David Weiss (W. W. Norton & Company, 1995)

“Who would tell the mockingbird his song is frivolous, since it lacks words?”

—Mary Oliver, one of her notebook entries in The Poet’s Notebook: Excerpts from the Notebooks of 26 American Poets, edited by Stephen Kuusisto, Deborah Tall, and David Weiss (W. W. Norton & Company, 1995)

April 6, 2012 with 19 notes
        tags: Alice Fulton. making the meaning. The Poet's Notebook. poetry writing.
“It came to me that the reason to make things less plain in a poem is that only by getting the reader to participate in making the meaning does it become a poem.” —Alice Fulton, from The Poet’s Notebook: Excerpts from the Notebooks of 26 American Poets, edited by Stephen Kuusisto, Deborah Tall, and David Weiss (W. W. Norton & Company, 1995)

“It came to me that the reason to make things less plain in a poem is that only by getting the reader to participate in making the meaning does it become a poem.”

—Alice Fulton, from The Poet’s Notebook: Excerpts from the Notebooks of 26 American Poets, edited by Stephen Kuusisto, Deborah Tall, and David Weiss (W. W. Norton & Company, 1995)

August 14, 2011 with 47 notes
        tags: advice. action. fairy tales. Mary Oliver. The Poet's Notebook.
“Fairy tales—the great difference is between doing something, and doing nothing.  Always, in such tales, the hero or heroine does something. —Mary Oliver, The Poet’s Notebook: Excerpts from the Notebooks of 26 American Poets (W.W. Norton, 1995)

“Fairy tales—the great difference is between doing something, and doing nothing.  Always, in such tales, the hero or heroine does something.

—Mary Oliver, The Poet’s Notebook: Excerpts from the Notebooks of 26 American Poets (W.W. Norton, 1995)

August 14, 2011 with 29 notes
        tags: choices. hypothetical question. Mary Oliver. The Poet's Notebook.
“Which would you rather be, intellectually deft, or spiritually graceful?” —Mary Oliver, The Poet’s Notebook: Excerpts from the Notebooks of 26 American Poets (W.W. Norton, 1995)

“Which would you rather be, intellectually deft, or spiritually graceful?”

—Mary Oliver, The Poet’s Notebook: Excerpts from the Notebooks of 26 American Poets (W.W. Norton, 1995)

February 21, 2011 with 24 notes
        tags: Donald Hall. poetry writing advice. The Poet's Notebook.
“Work is style, and this is style without thought; not in theory, only in fact.  When I take a sentence in my hand, raise it to the light, rub my hand across it, disjoin it, put it back together again with a comma added, raising the pitch in the front part; when I rub the grain of it, comb the fur of it, reassemble the bones of it, I am making something that carries with it the sound of a voice, the firmness of a hand.  Maybe little more.” —Donald Hall, taken from The Poet’s Notebook: Excerpts from the Notebooks of 26 Contemporary American Poets, edited by Stephen Kuusisto, Deborah Tall, and David Weiss (W. W. Norton & Company, 1995)

“Work is style, and this is style without thought; not in theory, only in fact.  When I take a sentence in my hand, raise it to the light, rub my hand across it, disjoin it, put it back together again with a comma added, raising the pitch in the front part; when I rub the grain of it, comb the fur of it, reassemble the bones of it, I am making something that carries with it the sound of a voice, the firmness of a hand.  Maybe little more.”

—Donald Hall, taken from The Poet’s Notebook: Excerpts from the Notebooks of 26 Contemporary American Poets, edited by Stephen Kuusisto, Deborah Tall, and David Weiss (W. W. Norton & Company, 1995)

January 22, 2011 with 44 notes
        tags: Garrett Hongo. mental erosion. The Poet's Notebook. worry.
“Worry is a mental erosion, a disease like leprosy upon consciousness, contagious and ultimately, to the imagination, fatal.”  —Garrett Hongo, from The Poet’s Notebook: Excerpts from the Notebooks of 26 American Poets

“Worry is a mental erosion, a disease like leprosy upon consciousness, contagious and ultimately, to the imagination, fatal.”  —Garrett Hongo, from The Poet’s Notebook: Excerpts from the Notebooks of 26 American Poets

January 22, 2011 with 14 notes
        tags: imagination. Joy Harjo. remembering. The Poet's Notebook.
“Remembering and imagination enter and leave from the same area of the soul.”  —Joy Harjo, from The Poet’s Notebook: Excerpts from the Notebooks of 26 American Poets

“Remembering and imagination enter and leave from the same area of the soul.”  —Joy Harjo, from The Poet’s Notebook: Excerpts from the Notebooks of 26 American Poets

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