Only truthful hands write true poems. I cannot see any basic difference between a handshake and a poem.
Interpretation
Honesty is fundamental in art, as it reflects the truth in poetry and human connections.
This quote by Paul Celan emphasizes the interconnection between truthfulness and artistic expression. He suggests that just as a handshake symbolizes genuine human interaction and trust, a poem crafted with sincerity conveys authentic emotion and experience. The implication is that both art and human relationships thrive on honest engagement, which leads to the creation of meaningful, impactful work.
In practice
In a poetry workshop, to encourage authenticity in writing.
With a changing key, you unlock the house where the snow of whatβs silenced drifts. Just like the blood that bursts from Your eye or mouth or ear, so your key changes. Changing your key changes the word That may drift with flakes. Just like the wind that rebuffs you, Clenched round your word is the snow.
Poetry is a sort of homecoming.
A poem, as a manifestation of language and thus essentially dialogue, can be a message in a bottle, sent out in the βnot always greatly hopeful-belief that somewhere and sometime it could wash up on land, on heartland perhaps. Poems in this sense too are under way: they are making toward something. Toward what? Toward something standing open, occupiable, perhaps toward an addressable Thou, toward an addressable reality.
Each arrow you shoot off carries its own target into the decidedly secret tangle
no one bears witness for the witness
in the air, there your root remains, there, in the air
Reinforced concrete buildings are by nature skeletal buildings. No noodles nor armoured turrets. A construction of girders that carry the weight, and walls that carry no weight. That is to say, buildings consisting of skin and bones.
What could be said about me...a man to whom only his painting matters? And of course his garden and his flowers as well.
All I try to do is portray Indians as we are, in creative ways. With imagination and poetry. I think a lot of Native American literature is stuck in one idea: sort of spiritual, environmentalist Indians. And I want to portray everyday lives. I think by doing that, by portraying the ordinary lives of Indians, perhaps people learn something new.
First, I try to take everything away that doesn't matter to singing. It sounds simplistic, but it works. There is absolute focus on singing: producing sounds and emotions that I have always enjoyed. This is key.
Feudal societies don't create great cinema; we have great theatre. The egalitarian societies create great cinema. The Americans, the French. Because equality is sort of what the cinema deals with. It deals with stories which don't fall into 'Everybody in their place and who's who,' and all that. But the theatre's full of that.
That's the reason why I'm making albums. That's the reason why I love hip-hop: It's a challenge every time.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.