I dream of lost vocabularies that might express some of what we no longer can.
Jack GilbertRead
I like ornament at the right time, but I don't want a poem to be made out of decoration ... When I read the poems that matter to me, it stuns me how much the presence of the heart-in all its forms-is endlessly available there. To experience ourselves in an important way just knocks me out. It puzzles me why people have given that up for cleverness. Some of them are ingenious, more ingenious than I am, but so many of them aren't any good at being alive.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes valuing authentic expression over superficial cleverness in poetry and life.
Jack Gilbert's quote critiques the tendency to prioritize cleverness and ornamentation in poetry, suggesting that true artistic value lies in the sincere expression of human experience and emotion. He discusses how genuine presence and feeling in poetry can profoundly affect the reader, highlighting his confusion about why some choose superficial ingenuity over the deeper aspects of being alive.
Themes
PoetryExpressionAuthenticityClevernessEmotion
In practice
Example use cases
In a literary discussion about poetry, this quote can be used to express the importance of emotional depth over mere cleverness.
More from Jack Gilbert
All quotes →Being alive is so extraordinary I don’t know why people limit it to riches, pride, security—all of those things life is built on. People miss so much because they want money and comfort and pride, a house and a job to pay for the house. And they have to get a car. You can’t see anything from a car. It’s moving too fast. People take vacations. That’s their reward—the vacation. Why not the life?
Jack GilbertRead
But anything worth doing is worth doing badly. Like being there by that summer ocean on the other side of the island while love was fading out of her, the stars burning so extravagantly those nights that anyone could tell you they would never last.
Jack GilbertRead
Are the angels of her bed the angels who come near me alone in mine? Are the green trees in her window the color is see in ripe plums? If she always sees backward and upside down without knowing it what chance do we have? I am haunted by the feeling that she is saying melting lords of death, avalanches, rivers and moments of passing through, And I am replying, "Yes, yes. Shoes and pudding.
Jack GilbertRead
We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world.
Jack GilbertRead
WAKING AT NIGHT The blue river is grey at morning and evening. There is twilight at dawn and dusk. I lie in the dark wondering if this quiet in me now is a beginning or an end.
Jack GilbertRead
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