on poetry

“I prefer the absurdity of writing poems/
to the absurdity of not writing poems.”
Wisława Szymborska
(July 2, 1923 – February 1, 2012)

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photo: Piotr Guzik
quote from “Possibilities”

on poetry

“Beware, my body and my soul, beware above all of crossing your arms and assuming the sterile attitude of the spectator, for life is not a spectacle, a sea of griefs is not a proscenium, and a man who wails is not a dancing bear.”
Aimé Césaire
(June 26, 1913 – April 17, 2008)

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photo
quote from Notebook of a Return to the Native Land

on poetry

“Poetry offers us a language when our other languages fail.”
Athol Williams
(b. June 20, 1970)

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on poetry

“Work, work, work — don’t be afraid to make things that are unsuccessful or ‘bad.’ Observe everything around you and store up its inspirations, so you don’t have to wait for inspiration to arrive — it’s simply and hopefully always present. Learn from others. Learn by copying. Learn always by doing. Introduce yourself to your voice at the right time. Be honest with yourself. For the times you can’t or don’t know how to do this, have someone or someones that can, and listen to them. You don’t have to let the audience dictate what you create, but you do need to have an audience who will receive what you create. This is good and a wealth of a classroom. Give. Follow your heart and that which will make it happy. Don’t be afraid—be fearless in risk-taking. Don’t be afraid to go the movies by yourself or eat in public alone. Ride your bicycle with a helmet. Don’t be a dick.”
Anis Mojgani
(b. June 13, 1977)

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Hilde Franzsen photo

on poetry

“Reading is important — read between the lines. Don’t swallow everything.”
Gwendolyn Brooks
(June 7, 1917 – December 3, 2000)

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on poetry

“In order for a writer to succeed, I suggest three things — read and write — and wait.”
Countee Cullen
(May 30, 1903 – January 9, 1946)

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photo by Carl Van Vechten

on poetry

“I write what I have to write, with no expectations except that I might be lucky enough to figure out what it is I need/want to say. I feel fortunate to have been published but I don’t think of that when I start something new. I just try to keep up a sense of discovery and wonder as I move through one poem after another. I have the most fun when I get an idea that takes me beyond the single solitary poem and into a series of them, perhaps a whole book of them. I think that’s because I love a stone with facets. ‘See how many ends this stick has,’ Montaigne wrote. How many ways are there to look at a blackbird, a vegetable garden, a cockroach, a pond in winter? That’s what fascinates me.”
Lorna Crozier
(b. May 24, 1948)

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quote
photo by Kamil Bialous

on poetry

“If you commit yourself to the art of poetry, you commit yourself to the task of learning how to see, using words as elements of sight and their sounds as prisms. And to see means to see something worth all the agony of learning how to see.”
Archibald MacLeish
(May 7, 1892 – April 20, 1982)

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quote

on poetry

C. P. Cavafy
(April 29, 1863 – April 29, 1933)

The Windows

In these dark rooms where I live out
empty days, I circle back and forth
trying to find the windows.
It will be a great relief when a window opens.
But the windows are not there to be found —
or at least I cannot find them. And perhaps
it is better that I don’t find them.
Perhaps the light will prove another tyranny.
Who knows what new things it will expose? 

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photo
poem

on poetry

 
 
“I’ve always said that you know you’re a poet when you type an em dash and you hit the delete button, and you type a colon and you hit the delete button, and you type an em dash and you hit the delete button, and you type a colon and you hit the delete button. If you can do that for about three hours straight, trying to figure out which one is the best one, if you can do that for three hours and call that a good time, then you’re probably a poet.”
Jericho Brown
(b. April 14, 1976)

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