It's absolutely crucial to maintain my life as a poet.
Edward HirschRead
I found a comfort in trying to solve some poetic problems because there were human ones I just couldn't solve.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the solace found in artistic expression amidst unresolved personal issues.
Edward Hirsch articulates the idea that engaging with poetic challenges provides a sense of comfort and clarity during times when one may feel overwhelmed by complicated human experiences. This juxtaposition highlights how art can serve as both a sanctuary and a means of understanding deeper emotional struggles.
In practice
In a lecture about the healing power of art, one might quote Hirsch to illustrate the personal connection between artists and their work.
It's absolutely crucial to maintain my life as a poet.
The commitment to working at poetry is important because a poet is a maker, and a poem is a made thing. We have to honor our feelings by working to transform them into something meaningful and lasting.
As far as I'm concerned, freedom is the most important thing to creativity. You should feel free to write in whatever way, whatever language, feels comfortable to you.
The idea that a poem was a made thing stayed with me, and I decided then that I wanted to be an artist, not just a diarist. So I put myself through a kind of apprenticeship in writing poetry, and I understood even then that my practice as a poet was deeply related to my reading.
And every year there is a brief, startling moment _x000D_ When we pause in the middle of a long walk home and _x000D_ Suddenly feel something invisible and weightless _x000D_ Touching our shoulders, sweeping down from the air: _x000D_ It is the autumn wind pressing against our bodies; _x000D_ It is the changing light of fall falling on us.
When poetry separates from song, then the words have to carry all the rhythm themselves; they have to do all the work. They can't rely on the singing voice.
One writes out of one thing only - one's own experience. Everything depends on how relentlessly one forces from this experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can possibly give. This is the only real concern of the artist, to recreate out of the disorder of life that order which is art.
If you have a story that seems worth telling, and you think you can tell it worthily, then the thing for you to do is to tell it, regardless of whether it has to do with sex, sailors or mounted policemen.
Style is wearing an evening dress to McDonald's, wearing heels to play football. It is personality, confidence and seduction.
Who could not return from a visit to Jack Vance's world, without feeling that he had been somewhere unique, that he had experienced things unavailable in our mundane world?
Every bit of me is devoted to love and art. And I aspire to try to be a teacher to my young fans who feel just like I felt when I was younger. I just felt like a freak. I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm trying to liberate them, I want to free them of their fears and make them feel that they can make their own space in the world.
Writing is not about making a buck, not about publishers and agents. Writing is not about feeling good. Writing is about pain, suffering, hard work, risk, and fear.
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