Give me hunger, pain and want, Shut me out with shame and failure From your doors of gold and fame, Give me your shabbiest, weariest hunger! But leave me a little love.
Carl SandburgRead
Poetry is the journal of the sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air. Poetry is a search for syllables to shoot at the barriers of the unknown and the unknowable. Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote describes poetry as an expression of yearning and exploration of the unknown.
Carl Sandburg's quote presents poetry as a profound means of expressing the deep-seated emotions and desires of the human experience. It encapsulates the struggle between the mundane and the unattainable, highlighting poetry's role in conveying our aspirations, our curiosities about life, and the fleeting beauty of existence. The imagery he employs suggests that poetry serves not only as a creative outlet but also as a way to confront the mysteries of life and nature.
Themes
PoetryExpressionArtYearningUnknownBeauty
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a creative writing class to inspire students to explore their emotions through poetry.
More from Carl Sandburg
All quotes →Nothing happens... but first a dream.
Carl SandburgRead
Read the dictionary from A to Izzard today. Get a vocabulary. Brush up on your diction. See whether wisdom is just a lot of language.
Carl SandburgRead
My name is Truth and I am the most elusive captive in the universe.
Carl SandburgRead
There is an eagle in me that wants to soar, and there is a hippopotamus in me that wants to wallow in the mud.
Carl SandburgRead
A liar goes in fine clothes, a liar goes in rags, a liar is a liar, clothes or no clothes.
Carl SandburgRead
Similar quotes
It is a magic book. Words mean things. When you put them together they speak. Yes, sometimes they flatten out and nothing they say is real, and that is one kind of magic. But sometimes a vision will rip up from them and shriek and clank wings clear as the sweat smudge on the paper under your thumb. And that is another kind.
Samuel R. DelanyRead
When I began making electronic music, the only thing I was thinking about was creating music that I really liked. I didn't think about what effect it would have; I was busy doing it.
Jean Michel JarreRead
The process is the most beautiful part.
Quincy JonesRead
I’ve learnt from experience that a painting isn’t finished when you put down your brush – that’s when it starts. The public reaction is what supplies meaning and value. Art comes alive in the arguments you have about it.
BanksyRead
Acting is not about being someone different. It's finding the similarity in what is apparently different, then finding myself in there.
Meryl StreepRead
I think I am the first person of color to direct a major white play on Broadway. In 1993? That's astounding to me. And horrifying to me.
George C. WolfeRead