We know there are poets who are chosen: by what or whom, we no more know than what lies beyond our final breath, or what caused a certain action which resulted in the fulfillment or the desecration and collapse of what we most cared for in life.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the mysterious nature of inspiration and the unpredictability of life.
Franz Wright highlights the enigmatic relationship between poets and their muse, suggesting that while some are selected by forces beyond their understanding, life itself is full of unforeseen events that can both uplift and bring despair. This deep contemplation acknowledges the complexities of creation and existence, and the intertwining of joy and sorrow in the journey of life, especially for those who create art.
In practice
In a speech at a literary festival, you might quote this to emphasize the unpredictable journey of creativity.
EPITAPH Now I'm not the brightest knife in the drawer, but I know a couple things about this life: poverty silence, impermanence discipline and mystery The world is not illusory, we are From crimson thread to toe tag If you are not disturbed there is something seriously wrong with you, I'm sorry And I know who I am I'll be a voice coming from nowhere, inside-- be glad for me.
I am in no way different from anyone else, that my predicament, my sense of aloneness or isolation may be precisely what unites me with everyone.
When I'm in certain moods, a conversation will start up in my head, and suddenly I'll realize that the language has reached a very high and interesting level, and then lines and stanzas will just kind of appear, full-blown.
I've always envied people who compose music or paint, because they don't have to be bothered with the sort of crude mess that language normally is, in everyday life and in the way we use it.
The humiliation I go through/when I think of my past/can only be described as grace./We are created by being destroyed.
Only through art can we get outside of ourselves and know another's view of the universe which is not the same as ours and see landscapes which otherwise would remain unknown to us like the landscapes of the moon. Thanks to art, instead of seeing a single world, our own, we see it multiply until we have before us as many worlds as there are original artists.
I write by hand, making many, many corrections. I would say I cross out more than I write. I have to hunt for words when I speak, and I have the same difficulty when writing.
I don't write tracts, I write novels. I'm not a preacher, I'm a fiction writer.
It wasn't stone. It wasn't welded steel. It wasn't traditional sculpture. They thought it was craft, or something else, but not art. They couldn't define it in the early Fifties when I was starting out.
In the early days, Porter Wagoner would not exactly scold me, but he's say, 'You're writing too many damn verses. You're makin' these songs too damn long.' And I'd say, 'Yeah, but I'm tellin' a story. I have a story to tell.' And he'd say, 'Well, you're not going to get it on the radio.' If I start writing a song, I'm writing it for a reason. People would say that I had to have two verses, and a chorus, and a bridge. I tried to learn that formula.
I've read a lot of really great characters in some really crappy stories, where I said, like, 'Boy I could shine here, but the story sucks.' I don't want to be part of that.
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