“She [Carol Parsinan] somehow read my poems and came back to me and convinced me that I could be a poet, that I had the passion and the enthusiasm and the creativity to become a poet, but that what I was writing was not poetry because I was just expressing my feelings and I wasn't try to make anything.” WritingTryingFeelingsPassionCreativityPoetConvincedEnthusiasmPoetry IsCarols Author:Edward Hirsch
“I started then to try and shape something rather than just express it and when I started to shape something and to imitate other poems that were written by other people, when I had tried to integrate my reading and my writing I was on my path.” PeopleWritingTryingReadingPathWrittenShapesIntegrating Author:Edward Hirsch
“I guess that would have been 1968. I was a freshman in college and I wasn't writing good poems, but I was at least trying to write poems then.” WritingTryingHas BeensCollegeFreshman Author:Edward Hirsch
“Our sense that things are transient, that everything is passing and then if you want to save something from the endless flux of experience and the world's movement, you have to set down a stake and try and make something that will last.” IfsWorldWantTryingLastsMovementEndlessPassingPassingsStakesTransientFlux Author:Edward Hirsch
“I don't have a set schedule to work on poetry at any given time, at the same time every day, but I do try to work on poetry every day and I do find some time every day that I can with some exceptions to work on poetry.” TryingI CanGivenExceptionSchedules Author:Edward Hirsch
“Often you've read another poem that you think is so beautiful that you'd like to make something like that. And so you try to make a sonnet that works in a certain kind of way, or you try to make something that's songlike, or you create a refrain, or you love the way a poem works in two line stanzas and you try to do that.” ThinkingWayTryingKindTwoBeautifulCertainLinesSonnetRefrain Author:Edward Hirsch
“I think the culture can absorb so many people writing poetry and trying to earn their living in poetry.” PeopleThinkingWritingTryingCultureWriting Poetry Author:Edward Hirsch
“It's not important - it's not necessary that you read everything. What is necessary is that you care about things that you read and that you find something that really matters to you and you try and make something like that.” TryingImportantMatterCare Author:Edward Hirsch
“Emily Dickinson calls previous poets her kinsmen of the shelf. You can always be consoled by your kinsmen of the shelf and you can participate in poetry by going to them and by trying to make something worthy of them.” TryingPoetWorthyShelvesEmily Author:Edward Hirsch
“In American tradition a certain kind of, I would say, desperate American friendliness in which the poet tries to reach out through the page to make a connection by the side of the road with some other person.” TryingKindPersonsCertainSidesPoetPagesTraditionConnectionsDesperateReach OutFriendlinessAmerican Tradition Author:Edward Hirsch
“You can seek clarity, you can seek warmth, you can try to make something for lasting. You can pack something in salt so that it's well made and you can hope that it outlasts time. But, ultimately that's not up to you.” TryingWellsMadeClarityLastingWarmthSaltPacksUp To You Author:Edward Hirsch
“Ultimately you're trying to reach across and find some other person, some other human warmth. But it is, especially in written poetry, it is inscribed in a text and the text can't do that work by itself and you as a poet can only do your best.” TryingHumansPersonsWrittenPoetWarmth Author:Edward Hirsch
“We're trying to make something that lasts in language and there's no question that many fiction writers began as poets and it's hard for me to think of any good fiction writers who don't also read poetry.” ThinkingTryingHardLastsLanguageFictionPoetFiction Writers Author:Edward Hirsch
