I can't imagine ever writing anything of any kind on a machine. I never tried to write either poetry or prose on a typewriter. I like to do it on useless paper, scrap paper, because it's of no importance.
W. S. MerwinRead
I think poetry is as old as language, and both come out of the same thing - an effort to try to express something that is inexpressible.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Poetry and language emerge from a shared desire to express the inexpressible.
W. S. Merwin reflects on the deep connection between poetry and language, suggesting that both originated from humanity's intrinsic need to articulate feelings, thoughts, and experiences that go beyond simple expression. This quote emphasizes how both forms of communication aim to capture the complexities of existence that often elude direct expression.
Themes
PoetryLanguageExpressionArtCommunication
In practice
Example use cases
In a poetry reading event to emphasize the timelessness of expression.
More from W. S. Merwin
All quotes βI think there's a kind of desperate hope built into poetry that one really wants, hopelessly, to save the world. One is trying to say everything that can be said for the things that one loves while there's still time.
W. S. MerwinRead
The kind of writing that matters most to me is something you don't learn about. It's constantly coming out of what I don't know rather than what I do know.
W. S. MerwinRead
I say to my breath once again, little breath come from in front of me, go away behind me, row me quietly now, as far as you can, for I am an abyss that I am trying to cross.
W. S. MerwinRead
Through all of youth I was looking for you_x000D_ without knowing what I was looking for_x000D_ part memory part distance remaining _x000D_ mine in the ways that I learn to miss you_x000D_ from what we cannot hold the stars are made.
W. S. MerwinRead
What I really believe is the only hopeful relation between our life and the whole of life is one of reverence and respect and of feeling at one with it. The other attitude which is the one our society is based on is devastating and it is killing the earth and it is killing us too.
W. S. MerwinRead
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Don't be a writer; it's a terrible way to live your life. There's nothing to be gained from it but poverty and obscurity and solitude. So if you have a taste for all those things, which means that you really are burning to do it, then go ahead and do it. But don't expect anything from anybody.
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Every fine story must leave in the mind of the sensitive reader an intangible residuum of pleasure, a cadence, a quality of voice that is exclusively the writer's own, individual, unique.
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I think all creative people are operating from the fear that, of the best of what they did, will anybody remember it? Will anybody tell stories about them? Will anybody keep those pictures on the mantle long after they are gone? It's why people write stories. It's peoples' grave markers.
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