Poetry is rather an approach to things, to life, than it is typographical production.
Interpretation
Poetry is more about the perspective and experience of life than just the physical act of writing.
In this quote, Joseph Brodsky highlights the essence of poetry, emphasizing that it is not merely a collection of written words but a way of engaging with and interpreting the world around us. Poetry serves as an approach to understanding life, suggesting that the feelings and sentiments captured in poetry are more significant than the technical aspects of its creation.
In practice
This quote can be used in a poetry workshop to inspire participants to connect with their emotions.
Basically, it's hard for me to assess myself, a hardship not only prompted by the immodesty of the enterprise, but because one is not capable of assessing himself, let alone his work. However, if I were to summarize, my main interest is the nature of time. That's what interests me most of all. What time can do to a man.
One always pulls the trigger out of self-interest and quotes history to avoid responsibility or pangs of conscience.
On the whole, infinity is a fairly palpable aspect of this business of publishing, if only because it extends a dead author's existence beyond the limits he envisioned, or provides a living author with a future he cannot measure. In other words, this business deals with the future which we all prefer to regard as unending.
The invention of ethical and political doctrines, which blossomed into our own social sciences, is a product of times when things appeared manageable. The same goes for the criticism of those doctrines, though as a voice from the past, this criticism proved prophetic.
Try not to pay attention to those who will try to make life miserable for you. There will be a lot of those - in the official capacity as well as the self-appointed.
To put it in plain language, Russia is that country where the name of a writer appears not on the cover of his book, but on the door of his prison cell.
Poetry is prose bewitched, a music made of visual thoughts, the sound of an idea.
My greatest joy comes from creativity: from feeling that I have been able to identify a certain aspect of human nature and crystallise a phenomenon in words.
Music is my mother and my father; it is my work and my rest...my blood...my compass...my love.
There is no model, there is only color.
A lot of children don't have a developed aesthetic. I did. I made early choices in life, even about cloth; I liked flannel and not polyester.
I always say I write because I have questions, not because I have answers. It's true that you begin the conversation - that's the role of the artist. But it's not my job to tell us what to do next. I wish I had those tools.
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