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Quote by John Ciardi

“To read a poem with no thought in mind but to paraphrase it into a single, simple and usually high-minded prose statement is the destruction of poetry.”

Quote by John Ciardi

Author

John Ciardi was an American poet born on June 24, 1916, and died on March 30, 1986. Known for his clear and direct style of poetry, he had a profound impact on 20th-century American poetry. more

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“One night I dreamed I was locked in my Father's watch With Ptolemy and twenty-one ruby stars Mounted on spheres and the Primum Mobile Coiled and gleaming to the end of space And the notched spheres eating each other's rinds To the last tooth of time, and the case closed.”

Ends Lasts Night Father Stars Space Watches Cases Eating Twenties Teeth Spheres Locked Mobile One Night Twenty One Rubies

Book:The Achievement of John Ciardi: A Comprehensive Selection of His Poems with a Critical Introduction

Source: The Achievement of John Ciardi: A Comprehensive Selection of His Poems with a Critical Introduction

“A neighborhood is a residential area that is changing for the worse.”

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“Every game ever invented by mankind, is a way of making things hard for the fun of it!”

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Book:An Introduction to Literature: How does a poem mean? By J. Ciardi

Source: An Introduction to Literature: How does a poem mean? By J. Ciardi

“Gentility is what is left over from rich ancestors after the money is gone.”

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“Spontaneous is what you get after the seventeenth draft.”

Writing Spontaneous

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“Looking, touching, material, place and form are all inseparable from the resulting work. It is difficult to say where one stops and another begins. The energy and space around a material are as important as the energy and space within. The weather--rain, sun, snow, hail, mist, calm--is that external space made visible. When I touch a rock, I am touching and working the space around it. It is not independent of its surroundings, and the way it sits tells how it came to be there.”

Way Made Important Form Energy Difficult Space Sun Rocks Materials Rain Independent Calm Snow Weather Visible Working It Touching Surroundings Mist Inseparable Hail

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“The underlying tension of a lot of my art is to try and look through the surface appearance of things. Inevitably, one way of getting beneath the surface is to introduce a hole, a window into what lies below.”

Way Trying Looks Art Lying Art Is Window Appearance Surface Holes One Way Tension Introducing Beneath The Surface

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“I want to get under the surface. When I work with a leaf, rock, stick, it is not just that material in itself, it is an opening into the processes of life within and around it. When I leave it, these processes continue.”

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“Movement, change, light, growth and decay are the lifeblood of nature, the energies that I I try to tap through my work. I need the shock of touch, the resistance of place, materials and weather, the earth as my source. Nature is in a state of change and that change is the key to understanding. I want my art to be sensitive and alert to changes in material, season and weather. Each work grows, stays, decays. Process and decay are implicit. Transience in my work reflects what I find in nature.”

Want Needs Trying Art States Light Earth Energy Grows Process Understanding Growth Movement Materials Source Keys Seasons Resistance Weather Sensitive Shock Decay Implicit Transience

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“When I’m working with materials it’s not just the leaf or the stone, it’s the processes that are behind them that are important. That’s what I’m trying to understand, not a single isolated object but nature as a whole.”

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