Poetry is for me Eucharistic. You take someone else's suffering into your body, their passion comes into your body, and in doing that you commune, you take communion, you make a community with others.
Interpretation
Poetry connects people by allowing individuals to experience and share in the suffering and passion of others.
In this quote, Mary Karr highlights the transformative power of poetry, comparing it to the act of communion in the Eucharist. She suggests that poetry allows readers to absorb the feelings and struggles of others, creating a deep sense of community and shared experience through the art of words. This sharing not only fosters empathy but also unites people through their collective emotional experiences.
In practice
During a poetry reading event, I shared this quote to express the power of poetic connection.
There's a space at the bottom of an exhale, a little hitch between taking in and letting out that's a perfect zero you can go into. There's a rest point between the heart muscle's close and open - an instant of keenest living when you're momentarily dead. You can rest there.
Mother’s particular devils had remained mysterious to me for decades. So had her past. Few born liars ever intentionally embark in truth’s direction, even those who believe that such a journey might axiomatically set them free.
I was 40 years old before I became an overnight success, and I'd been publishing for 20 years.
I always say that a poet loves the world, and the prose writer needs to create an alternative world.
Childhood was terrifying for me. A kid has no control. You're three feet tall, flat broke, unemployed, and illiterate. Terror snaps you awake. You pay keen attention. People can just pick you up and move you and put you down.
Reading is socially accepted disassociation. You flip a switch and you’re not there anymore. It’s better than heroin. More effective and cheaper and legal.
A writer lives in awe of words, for they can be cruel or kind, and they can change their meanings right in front of you. They pick up flavors and odors like butter in a refrigerator.
We find things beautiful because we recognize them and contrariwise we find things beautiful because their novelty surprises us.
To me, rock music was never meant to be safe. I think there needs to be an element of intrigue, mystery, subversiveness. Your parents should hate it.
The Bauhaus strives to bring together all creative effort into one whole, to reunify all the disciplines of practical art - sculpture, painting, handicrafts, and crafts - as inseparable components of a new architecture.
I think I have always tried to do the smaller films. I like to jump around and there is something really nice for acting in a smaller film... But I think now, Hollywood's movies certainly involve a younger generation for the most part and so... I love going back and forth.
Sorrowful and great is the artist's destiny.
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