A poet's work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep.
Interpretation
Poets illuminate truths and provoke thought, challenging the status quo.
This quote by Salman Rushdie emphasizes the role of a poet as a crucial figure in society, tasked with articulating the inexpressible and confronting untruths. By engaging in arguments and sparking discussions, poets not only reflect the world but also influence its direction, urging people to remain awake and aware rather than complacent.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of literature, one might quote this to illustrate the power of poetry.
I've been fascinated by Machiavelli since I was very young. I've always felt that he had a bad rap from history, and that he was actually a person quite unlike what we now think of as Machiavellian. He was a republican. He disliked totalitarian government.
Killing people because you don't like their ideas - it's a bad thing.
faith without doubt is addiction
I am clearly vulnerable to these more passionate and volatile unstable relationships. I am trying to not be so vulnerable.
In India, as elsewhere in our darkening world, religion is the poison in the blood. Where religion intervenes, mere innocence is no excuse. Yet we go on skating around this issue, speaking of religion in the fashionable language of 'respect.' What is there to respect in any of this, or in any of the crimes now being committed almost daily around the world in religion's dreaded name?
Reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems - but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems more and more incredible.
When you create those characters that people love and care about and put them in a dark hallway, already the audience is on edge, and they feel empathy for that character. Then it's up to me to decide what jumps out in that hallway. So I think laying that foundation of strong characters and strong story is the most important thing in a horror film.
No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style.
I don't write for children. I write and someone says it's for children.
The true work of art is born from the 'artist': a mysterious, enigmatic, and mystical creation. It detaches itself from him, it acquires an autonomous life, becomes a personality, an independent subject, animated with a spiritual breath, the living subject of a real existence of being.
For me, the importance in learning about the dance is using it as a voice. It's not about a step, it's about a way to express oneself.
Ah, art! Ah, life! The pendulum swinging back and forth, from complex to simple, again to complex. From romantic to realistic, back to romantic.
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