“Although the poet has as wide a choice of subjects as the painter, his creations fail to afford as much satisfaction to mankind as do paintings... if the poet serves the understanding by way of the ear, the painter does so by the eye, which is the nobler sense.” IfsWayDoeEyeChoicesUnderstandingFailingSubjectsMankindCreationPaintingPoetEarsSatisfactionWidePainter Author:Leonardo da Vinci
“Occasionally there is a moment in a person's life when he takes a great stride forward in wisdom, humility, or disillusionment. For a split second he comes into a kind of cosmic understanding. For a trembling breath of time he knows all there is to know. He is loaned the gift the poet yearned for - seeing himself as others see him.” KnowsKindPersonsMomentsWisdomUnderstandingSeeingHumilityPoetBreathsCosmicSplitsTremblingStrideDisillusionment Author:Betty Smith
“The arts of speech are rhetoric and poetry. Rhetoric is the art of transacting a serious business of the understanding as if it were a free play of the imagination; poetry that of conducting a free play of the imagination as if it were a serious business of the understanding.” IfsArtPlayPoetryUnderstandingImaginationSeriousPoetSpeechRhetoricConductingSerious BusinessFree Play Book:Kant's Critiques Source: Kant's Critiques
“One of the best gifts you can give a poet is to present them with field guides - to rocks, to stars, to birds, to wildflowers, to trees and bushes, to butterflies, to reptiles and amphibians. Because when you look at anything long enough to be able to identify it, you see far more clearly and you make a tiny beginning at understanding the life, the place, the history of that bird or rock or mammal.” GivingLooksLongEnoughAbleStarsUnderstandingTreeRocksFieldsPoetBirdGuidesTinyButterflyMammalsBest GiftWildflowersReptilesAmphibians Author:Marge Piercy
“I had to learn that slower is faster. If you practice every day with patience and correctness, you will get there. It's like preparing for a jump. You can't rush. You must summon the appropriate energy with split-second timing and have an understanding of purpose to get up in the air. It requires training, confidence and mental effort. You can't have a vocabulary without the alphabet. Balanchine used to say, "Do you want to be a poet of gesture or do you want to be a physical entity?"” IfsWantUsedPurposeEnergyUnderstandingEffortPracticeAirPoetTrainingGet UpFasterAppropriateGesturesSplitsTimingEntityPreparingVocabularyCorrectnessAlphabetUp In The Air Author:Edward Villella
“Poets do not compose their poems with knowledge, but by some inborn talent and by inspiration, like seers and prophets who also say many fine things without any understanding of what they say.” InspirationUnderstandingTalentPoetFineProphetSeersFine Things Book:Plato: Five Dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo Source: Plato: Five Dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo
“I do like Canadian poetry. Christian Bök, Anne Carson, Carmine Starnino, and Don McKay are a few of the Canadian poets whose work has been important to me. But I'm not sure that I do see poetry as a world apart. Some of my metaphors are based in the fantastic, but I try to be true to life as I understand it. That understanding is affected by my Canadianness, my Americanness, my whiteness, my gender, my age, my education, my experience...everything about me affects my view of reality. But I try to wrestle against those partialities, not embrace them.” WorldTryingImportantRealityAgeChristianUnderstandingPoetEmbraceMetaphorGenderBeing TrueFantasticNot SureTrue LifePartiality Author:James Arthur
“I want to reiterate that my understanding of the poem is not the poem's core, true meaning. Once a poem goes out into the world, the poet is just one more reader.” WorldUnderstandingPoet Author:James Arthur