“It is always a disappointment to turn from forthright consideration of some subject - whether from the Left or the Right, a poet or a plumber - to the Beltway version, in which the only aspects of the issue that matter are the effects it will have on the fortunes of the two parties and the various men in power.” MenTwoMatterTurnsLeftPartyIssuesSubjectsEffectsPoetAspectFortuneDisappointmentVariousVersionsConsiderationPlumber Author:Thomas Frank
“When a poet writes a poem, meaning arises - because the poet is not alone; he has created something. When a dancer dances, meaning arises. When a mother gives birth to a child, meaning arises. Left alone, cut off from everything else, isolated like an island, you are meaningless. Joined together you are meaningful. The bigger the whole, the bigger is the meaning.” GivingWritingChildrenWholeMotivationalTogetherMotherLeftCuttingPoetBirthBiggerMeaningfulAriseIslandsDancerMeaninglessIsolatedNot AloneLeft Alone Author:Rajneesh
“A Poet, Naturalist, and Historian, Who left scarcely any style of writing untouched, And touched nothing that he did not adorn.” WritingLeftStylePoetTouchedHistorianNaturalist Author:Samuel Johnson
“When modernist poetry, or what not so long ago passed for modernist poetry, can reach the stage where the following piece by Mr. Ezra Pound is seriously offered as a poem, there is some justification for the plain reader and orthodox critic who shrinks from anything that may be labelled 'modernist' either in terms of condemnation or approbation. Better he thinks, that ten authentic poets should be left for posterity to discover than one charlatan should be allowed to steal into the Temple of Fame.” ThinkingShouldMayLongLeftTermPiecesStagePoetReaderFameTenCriticsFollowingStealingTemplesPoundsOrthodoxJustificationLong AgoShrinksPosterityCondemnationCharlatans Author:Laura Riding
“I was strong and tough enough and charming. / How else is a fat Jew lesbian poet gonna get by? / Listening to the radio, staying home, staying alone, like / they mean us to. / Who means you to be left out? / Who don't?” MeanEnoughHomeLeftStrongPoetListeningToughRadioJewFatsStayingBigotryOutsidersCharmingLeft Out Author:Elana Dykewomon
“The only refuge left to us was the poet's ivory tower, which we climbed, ever higher, to isolate ourselves from the mob.” LeftPoetHigherRefugeTowersIvoryIvory Tower Author:Gerard De Nerval
“I was a tiny bug. Now a mountain. I was left behind. Now honored at the head. You healed my wounded hunger and anger, and made me a poet who sings about joy.” MadeSpiritualJoyLeftGrowthBehindsPoetMountainHungerTinySpiritual GrowthWoundedHonoredBugsLeft BehindHealed Author:Rumi
“There is nothing “still” in the remarkably visceral poems of Alexander Long's third collection, Still Life, and nothing is at rest in these restless and edgy poems. Conversational and kinetic, these poems chart the traces left by the shifting overlays of the templates of literature, rock-and-roll, and contemporary culture. As each poem in Still Life attempts to fix a focus upon a scene or subject, the protean natures under view draw the poet into the eddies and complexities of reflection. This is a powerful and moving collection of poems.” LongStillsMovingCultureLiteratureLeftViewsPowerfulFocusSubjectsRocksPoetSceneDrawsReflectionThirdsContemporaryComplexityCollectionsRock And RollRestlessShiftingEdgyVisceralStill Life Author:David St. John
“My mother actually left American in 1929 to be part of an alternative community of bohemians around her then father-in-law who was a well-known Greek poet. This group of people were living in this semi-Luddite reality and weaving their own clothes - proto-hippies in a way- -but around an artistic vision.” PeopleWayWellsRealityLawMotherFatherLeftCommunityKnownVisionGroupsPoetClothesArtisticAlternativesGreekWell KnownHippieIn-lawsWeavingArtistic VisionFather In Law Author:Anne Waldman
“It's ironic that while I was a worker in Detroit, which I left when I was twenty six, my sense was that the thing that's going to stop me from being a poet is the fact that I'm doing this crummy work.” FactsLeftPoetSixTwentiesWorkersIronicDetroit Author:Philip Levine
“No more than a famous master can be replaced and another take over the completion of the half-finished painting he has left behind can the great poet and thinker, the great statesman and the great soldier, be replaced. For their activity lies always in the province of art. It is not mechanically trained but inborn by God's grace.” ArtLyingLeftBehindsHalfGracePaintingPoetMastersActivitySoldierFinishedThinkerReplacedLeft BehindStatesmenProvincesCompletionGod's GraceGreat Poet Author:Adolf Hitler
“The art of poetry consists in taking the poem through draft after draft, without losing its inspirational magic: he removes everything irrelevant or distracting, and tightens up what is left. Lazy poets never carry their early drafts far enough: some even believe that virtue lies in the original doodle scrawled on the back of an envelope.” BelieveArtEnoughLyingLeftVirtueMagicPoetLosingOriginalsLazyRemoveIrrelevantEnvelopes Book:Food for Centaurs: Stories, Talks, Critical Studies, Poems Source: Food for Centaurs: Stories, Talks, Critical Studies, Poems
“I mean, in the history of poetry there have been a lot poetries where you have to inherit the position of poet from your ancestors and I think that if you just leave anyone to become a poet based on an aristocratic society, then a lot of people are left out who might have something to offer.” PeopleIfsThinkingMeanHas BeensMightLeftPositionPoetOffersAncestorLeft OutAristocratic Author:Edward Hirsch
“When poets die, other poets take it personally, almost as an affront. A lot of us "left behind" are thinking that poetry is the one thing keeping us alive and present, so what does it mean when one of our ranks chooses to end his or her life? There's an anger beneath the grief, you know? That anger and grief, in turn, breeds other poems from those of us left behind.” ThinkingKnowsMeanDoeEndsDiesTurnsLeftGriefBehindsAliveOne ThingPoetPoetry IsLeft BehindAffront Author:Allison Joseph