Poetry is not easy. Or should I say, real poetry is not easy.
Robert PinskyRead
The medium of poetry is a human body: the column of air inside the chest, shaped into signifying sounds in the larynx and the mouth. In this sense, poetry is just as physical or bodily an art as dancing.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Poetry is fundamentally an expression of the human body and its sounds, akin to dance.
Robert Pinsky highlights the intrinsic connection between poetry and the physicality of the human body. He emphasizes that poetry is not merely an abstract or intellectual endeavor, but rather a performance art that involves the breath, voice, and physical presence of the poet, just as dance utilizes the body to convey emotion and meaning.
Themes
PoetryArtBodyExpressionDance
In practice
Example use cases
In a poetry reading, I often quote Pinsky to highlight how physical presence influences performance.
More from Robert Pinsky
All quotes →Poetry is the most bodily of the arts.
Robert PinskyRead
Sometimes the ideas that mean the most to you will feel true long before you can quite formulate them or justify them.
Robert PinskyRead
New Jersey is the most poetic state: close enough to New York to be urban and cosmopolitan, far enough to be desirous and unsure; densely populated, but full of farms and woods, with the most deer of any state.
Robert PinskyRead
For a lot of people, well-meaning teaching has made poetry seem arcane, difficult, a kind of brown-knotting medicine that might be good for you but doesn't taste so good. So I tried to make a collection of poetry that would be fun. And that would bring out poetry as an art, rather than the challenge to say smart things.
Robert PinskyRead
'Write' is almost the wrong verb for what I do. I think 'compose' is more accurate because you're trying to make the sounds in your mind and in your voice. So I compose while I'm driving or in the shower.
Robert PinskyRead
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