“I've never been able to write poetry without having vast tracts of dead time. Poetry requires a certain kind of disciplined indolence that the world, including many prose writers, doesn't recognize as discipline. It is, though. It's the discipline to endure hours that you refuse to fill with anything but the possibility of poetry, though you may in fact not be able to write a word of it just then, and though it may be playing practical havoc with your life. It's the discipline of preparedness.” WorldWritingKindMayFactsAbleCertainHoursPossibilityDisciplineEndureIncludingRefusePracticalsProseIndolencePreparednessHavocTime Poetry Author:Christian Wiman
“There are dangers for an artist in any academic environment. Academia rewards people who know their own minds and have developed an ironclad confidence in speaking them. That kind of assurance is death for an artist.” PeopleKnowsMindKindArtistEnvironmentDangerRewardsAcademicAssuranceAcademiaIronclads Author:Christian Wiman
“There is nothing more difficult to outgrow than anxieties that have become useful to us, whether as explanations for a life that never quite finds its true force or direction, or as fuel for ambition, or as a kind of reflexive secular religion that, paradoxically, unites us with others in a shared sense of complete isolation: you feel at home in the world only by never feeling at home in the world.” WorldFeelsKindFeelingsHomeForceDifficultAnxietyAmbitionExplanationIsolationFuelSecularNever Quit Author:Christian Wiman
