To me, poetry is somebody standing up, so to speak, and saying, with as little concealment as possible, what it is for him or her to be on earth at this moment
Interpretation
Poetry serves as a personal expression of one's existence and experiences in the present moment.
In this quote, Galway Kinnell emphasizes the essence of poetry as an authentic and unguarded declaration of one’s individual perspective on life at a specific time. He suggests that poets convey their deepest feelings and observations about their existence, bringing a sense of immediacy and personal truth to their work, which resonates with the human experience.
In practice
A poet sharing their latest work in a literary gathering.
When I sleepwalk into your room, and pick you up, and hold you up in the moonlight, you cling to me hard, as if clinging could save us. I think you think I will never die, I think I exude to you the permanence of smoke or stars, even as my broken arms heal themselves around you.
Turn on the dream you lived through the unwavering gaze. It is as you thought: the living burn. In the floating days may you discover grace.
Little sleep's-head sprouting hair in the moonlight, when I come back we will go out together, we will walk out together among, the ten thousand things, each scratched too late with such knowledge, the wages of dying is love.
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again, their memories are what give them the need for other hands. And the desolation of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness carved out of such tiny beings as we are asks to be filled; the need for the new love is faithfulness to the old.
I try with my pictures to raise a question, to provoke a debate, so that we can discuss problems together and come up with solutions.
In a rehearsal room, your real resource as an actor aren't the things around you; your resources are your imagination and your director and the other actors. In those close quarters, your imagination and your skills are what you turn to.
When the punk thing came along and I heard my friends saying, I hate these people with the pins in their ears. I said, Thank God, something got their attention.
Nobody sang better than my mom. That's why I've never even thought of singing for singing sake. I've always thought of a song as an acting piece, as a way to say something.
What you have in your head, put down on paper. The head is a fragile vessel.
When someone picks up one of my songs and records it, I'm a flattered man, it's a blessing to me
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