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Quote by Edward Hirsch

“Now, I do say, "It's possible. You might be the first. I'm not saying it's impossible, but the odds are very much against you." All great poets have been great readers and the way to learn your craft in poetry is by reading other poetry and by letting it guide you.”

Quote by Edward Hirsch

Author

Edward Hirsch is an American poet renowned for his profound emotion and rich imagination. His works often explore themes of personal identity, history, and memory, earning him the admiration of readers and critics alike. more

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“A great model for this is the way that Dante calls on Virgil at the beginning of 'The Inferno,' 'The Divine Comedy,' to help guide him through the underworld.”

Way Helping Comedy Divine Models Guides Underworld Inferno Divine Comedy

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.”

Way Needs Writing Book Turns Poet Calling Six Models Recognition Guidance Epic Underworld Inferno Aeneas

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“There are many poets that use as my models. In my first book of poems, I had several for the "Sleepwalkers," I had several poems that were apprentice poems like this in which I take a walk with a poet who is no longer alive.”

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“I walk with Federico Garcia Lorca around the Upper West Side in Manhattan because that was a neighborhood he lived in and I imagine walking around Paris with Cesar Vallejo, a great Peruvian poet who lived in Paris. And I kind of create the walk as a kind of drama of my apprenticeship.”

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Author:Edward Hirsch

“I think one of the things that distinguished my work from the beginning when I was in college was my turning towards poetry from other countries.”

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Author:Edward Hirsch

“I didn't ever consider poetry the province exclusively of English and American literature and I discovered a great amount in reading Polish poetry and other Eastern European poetry and reading Russian poetry and reading Latin American and Spanish poetry and I've always found models in those other poetries of poets who could help me on my path.”

Helping Reading Found Literature Path Poet Amount Models Help Me Latin Eastern Polish Latin America Provinces American Literature Latin American

Author:Edward Hirsch

“I think it shapes it in very deep ways that you don't entirely understand. Rainer Maria Rilke said there are two inexhaustible sources for poetry. One is dreams, and the other is childhood. I think childhood is an inexhaustible source of your becoming who you will be and certain deep feelings are set inside of you.”

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Author:Edward Hirsch

“A certain construct of emotions that really define who you are and who you will become and I feel very much that my childhood is very alive inside of me, very close to me, very much part of me. And it's a sometimes painful, sometimes joyous inexhaustible resource for poetry.”

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Author:Edward Hirsch

“And a lot of poetry is putting yourself back into the state of wonder that you have before things when you're a child. It's not only a joyous wonder, it's sometimes a grief stricken wonder.”

Children Sometimes States Grief Wonder Poetry Is Joyous State Of Wonder

Author:Edward Hirsch

“I have the idea that lyric poetry is a poetry that's driven by a sense of the presence of death. That there's something unbearable about the fact that we're going to die and that we can't stand it and I think you find that out in childhood and you don't really - at least I found it out in childhood and I found it hard to get over.”

Thinking Ideas Hard Facts Dies Found Childhood Driven Poetry Is Get Over Unbearable Lyric Poetry

Author:Edward Hirsch