“Poetry never loses its appeal. Sometimes its audience wanes and sometimes it swells like a wave. But the essential mystery of being human is always going to engage and compel us. We're involved in a mystery. Poetry uses words to put us in touch with that mystery. We're always going to need it.” NeedsHumansSometimesUsePoetryLosesAudienceMysteryInvolvedEssentialsWaveAppealsBeing Human Author:Edward Hirsch
“The spiritual desire for poetry can be overwhelming, so much do I need it to experience and name my own perilous depths and vast spaces, my own well-being.” NeedsWellsSpiritualDesireNamesMy OwnSpaceDepthWell BeingOverwhelming Book:How to Read a Poem: And Fall in Love with Poetry Source: How to Read a Poem: And Fall in Love with Poetry
“The imagination is an organ of understanding. And the imagination needs all the faculties at hand, all the sensibility, all the conscious and unconscious intelligence it can galvanize to fulfill its luminous mission.” NeedsHandsUnderstandingImaginationConsciousMissionsUnconsciousFacultyOrgansSensibilityLuminousConscious And Unconscious Author:Edward Hirsch
“In a way, that's also a recognition that Dante needs Virgil and that the Inferno needs the Aeneid and that the epic needs a model and that for Dante to write this great poem he needs someone to come before him and he turns to Virgil's text, especially book six where Aeneas goes down into the underworld. And for me, that's a model of the poet's relationship to previous poetry, to another poetry as calling out for guidance.” WayNeedsWritingBookTurnsPoetCallingSixModelsRecognitionGuidanceEpicUnderworldInfernoAeneas Author:Edward Hirsch
“You're alone with yourself and your own feelings and that gives you deeper access to what you need to get in touch with to write poetry.” NeedsGivingWritingFeelingsDeeperAccess Author:Edward Hirsch
“So, the process of revision, it's not systematic. But for me, I mean, I know a lot of poets who write out a draft and then revise it and I think they're happier people. But, I'm just not able to do it that way. I need to just continually examine it as I do it.” PeopleThinkingKnowsWayNeedsWritingMeanAbleProcessPoetSystematicRevision Author:Edward Hirsch
“I would be happier if people who went through MFA programs also were already, by then, deeply committed readers of poetry because we need readers of poetry as much as writers of poetry.” PeopleIfsNeedsWould BeReaderProgramCommittedPoetry Is Author:Edward Hirsch
“There's always some place to go. You don't need workshops, you don't need friends necessarily, you can be befriended by literature itself.” NeedsLiteratureWorkshopsPlaces To GoFriend In Need Author:Edward Hirsch
“The idea of how to read a poem is based on the idea that poetry needs you as a reader. That the experience of poetry, the meaning in poetry is a kind of circuit that takes place between a poet, a poem and a reader and that meaning doesn't exist or in here in poems alone.” NeedsKindIdeasPoetReaderPoetry IsNeed YouCircuits Author:Edward Hirsch
“I think that's a connection that you can only hope for. It's not something that you can make because it needs someone else.” ThinkingNeedsConnections Author:Edward Hirsch
“When I taught at the University of Houston in the Creative Writing program we required the poets to take workshops in fiction writing and we required the fiction writers to take workshops in poetry. And the reason for that is because the fiction writers seemed to need to learn how to pay greater attention to language itself, to the way that language works.” WayNeedsWritingReasonLanguagePayAttentionFictionCreativeGreaterTaughtPoetProgramUniversityCreative WritingWorkshopsFiction WritingFiction WritersHouston Author:Edward Hirsch
“I need to live like that crooked tree--... that knelt down in the hardest winds but could not be blasted away.” NeedsTreeWindHardestCrooked Book:Special Orders: Poems Source: Special Orders: Poems
