Paul

“...the trouble with poetry is
that it encourages the writing of more poetry...
”
― Billy Collins, The Trouble With Poetry - And Other Poems

“Poetry, I tell my students,
is idiosyncratic. Poetry
is where we are ourselves,
(though Sterling Brown said
"Every 'I' is a dramatic 'I'")
digging in the clam flats
for the shell that snaps,
emptying the proverbial pocketbook.
Poetry is what you find
in the dirt in the corner,
overhear on the bus, God
in the details, the only way
to get from here to there.
Poetry (and now my voice is rising)
is not all love, love, love
and I'm sorry the dog died.
Poetry (here I hear myself loudest)
is the human voice,
and are we not of interest to each other?”
― Elizabeth Alexander, American Sublime: Poems

“I want to overhear passionate arguments about what we are and what we are doing and what we ought to do. I want to feel that art is an utterance made in good faith by one human being to another. I want to believe there are geniuses scheming to astonish the rest of us, just for the pleasure of it.”
― Marilynne Robinson, The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought

“Brimming. That's what it is, I want to get to a place where my sentences enact brimming.”
― Li-Young Lee, Breaking the Alabaster Jar: Conversations with Li-Young Lee