“More than any other contemporary British playwright, Tom Stoppard populates his plays -- from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead to The Invention of Love (his portrait of the poet and scholar A. E. Housman) -- with characters from life and literature. But one cannot always tell the difference between those who are real and those who are imaginary.” RealPlayCharacterLiteratureDifferencesPoetBritishInventionContemporaryScholarImaginaryTomsPortraitsPlaywrightRosencrantz And Guildenstern Author:Mel Gussow
“[Rhyme is] but the invention of a barbarous age, to set off wretched matter and lame Meter; ... Not without cause therefore some both Italian and Spanish poets of prime note have rejected rhyme, ... as have also long since our best English tragedies, as... trivial and of no true musical delight; which [truly] consists only in apt numbers, fit quantity of syllables, and the sense variously drawn out from one verse into another, not in the jingling sound of like endings, a fault avoided by the learned ancients both in poetry and all good oratory.” LongMatterAgeCausesSoundNumbersPoetFitTragedyFaultsNotesMusicalDelightInventionPrimeItalianQuantityVersesRejectedRhymeWretchedAvoidedMeterLameSyllablesOratory Author:John Milton
“S. E. Smith's I Live in a Hut has a deceptively simple title, considering that the brain in that hut contains galaxies-worth of invention: At night when your soldiers are praying ceaselessly for less rain and more underwear my soldiers make underwear out of rain. These poems seesaw between despair and delight but delight is winning the battle. Smith is a somersaulting tightrope walker of a poet and her poems will make you look at anything and everything with new eyes: For days I tried to rub the new freckle // off my hand until I realized what it was / and began to grant it its sovereignty.” LooksHandsEyeNightWinningSimpleBrainPoetPrayingBattleDespairRainSoldierDelightI RealizedInventionTitlesGrantsConsideringSovereigntyGalaxyUnderwearWalkersHutsFrecklesAnything And EverythingNew EyesMy SoldierSeesaw Author:Matthea Harvey
“I fell in love. It felt exactly like a fall, a head-over-heels tumble into a state of unbearable lightness. The earth tilted on its axis. I did not believe in romantic love at the time, thinking it a human construct, an invention of fourteenth century Italian poets. I was as unprepared for love as I had been for goodness and beauty. Suddenly, my heart seemed swollen, too large for my chest.” ThinkingBelieveHumansHeartStatesEarthFallFeltCenturyPoetMy HeartGoodnessInventionChestsItalianHeelsRomantic LoveConstructsUnbearableLightnessAxesUnpreparedSwollenUnbearable LightnessHead Over Heels Book:What's So Amazing about Grace? Source: What's So Amazing about Grace?
“Everywhere we are told that our human resources are all to be used, that our civilization itself means the uses of everything it has - the inventions, the histories, every scrap of fact. But there is one kind of knowledge - infinitely precious, time-resistant more than monuments, here to be passed between the generations in any way it may be: never to be used. And that is poetry.” WayHumansKindMayMeanFactsUseUsedPoetryKnowledgeGenerationsPoetCivilizationResourcesInventionMonumentUsefulnessHuman ResourcesScrapPrecious Time Author:Muriel Rukeyser
“For the poet is a light winged and holy thing, and there is no invention in him until he has been inspired and is out of his senses and the mind is no longer with him. When he has not attained this state he is powerless and unable to utter his oracles.” MindHas BeensStatesLightPoetHolyInspiredSensesInventionPowerlessOracles Book:The Complete Plato Source: The Complete Plato
“The problem with describing poets as legislators is that at that level of politics - politics as political invention - poets have no special skills and are not apt to.” ProblemPoliticalLevelsSpecialPoetSkillsInventionDescribingLegislators Author:Robert Hass
“I think that what I learned then, I didn't know I was learning. I just knew that I was very privileged to see somebody who was a writer, a great poet, and very smart-faced. Suddenly Pasolini becomes a director, so he has to invent cinema. It was like watching the invention of cinema. But I found out that Pasolini taught me a lot. It was, especially, the kind of respect that he had for reality. He had kind of epiphanies in his movies, like when a moment becomes full of grace, and it is like as if it was the most important moment in the life of a character.” ThinkingKindImportantMomentsCharacterRealityGracePoetInventionEpiphanyVery SmartGreat Poet Author:Bernardo Bertolucci