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Quote by Jane Hirshfield

“Poems' deep work is a matter of language, but also a matter of life. One part of that work is to draw into our awareness and into language itself the unobvious and the unexpected.”

Quote by Jane Hirshfield

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Jane Hirshfield
Jane Hirshfield

Jane Hirshfield is an American poet known for her concise and profound poetry. Born on February 24, 1953, she has gained widespread recognition in the literary world since the 1980s. more

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“Poems offer us counter-knowledges. They let us see what is invisible to ordinary looking, and to find in overlooked corners the opulence of our actual lives. Similarly, we usually spend our waking hours trying to be sure of things - of our decisions, our ideas, our choices. We so want to be right. But we walk by right foot and left foot.”

WantTryingIdeasChoicesLeftHoursDecisionWalksFeetOffersOrdinaryCornersInvisibleWakingOverlookedOur ChoicesOpulenceActual Life
Author:Jane Hirshfield
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“Poems give us permission to be unsure, in ways we must be if we are ever to learn anything not already known. If you look with open eyes at your actual life, it's always going to be the kind of long division problem that doesn't work out perfectly evenly. Poems let you accept the multiplicity and complexity of the actual, they let us navigate the unnavigable, insoluble parts of our individual fates and shared existence.”

IfsWayGivingLooksKindLongProblemEyeIndividualExistenceKnownAcceptingFateWork OutComplexityDivisionPermissionNavigateMultiplicityUnsureOpen EyesActual Life
Author:Jane Hirshfield
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“Creativity itself is a joyous unlatching. The act of creative imagining, inventing, saying differently, crafting a metaphor or image, then crafting another metaphor or image when you go further or when you revise - all these take whatever you think "is" and make clear that other possibilities exist as well. The sense of possibility, the amplitude and freedom that sense of malleability brings - for me, that cannot help but be joyous.”

ThinkingWellsHelpingCreativityCreativeClearPossibilityMetaphorJoyousInventing
Author:Jane Hirshfield
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“I'm always thinking about young people first when I'm writing music. Whenever I can reach that young person and inspire them to go after their own dreams, start their own movement just like I did with Wondaland. Starting their own tribe and showing people that we are not all the same, we're not all monolithic. I think that's what it's all about for me.”

PeopleThinkingWritingFirstsPersonsI CanDreamYoungMovementInspireStartingTribesAlways ThinkingWriting MusicThinking About You
Author:Janelle Monae
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