from the learning notebooks
i’ve gathered around me, rather by accident, a tall stack of books about poetry. here’s a bit from my notebooks:
although the wind
blows terribly here,
the moonlight also leaks
between the roof planks
of this ruined house.
:: Shikibu
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the mind of poetry makes visible how permeable we are to the winds and moonlight with which we share our house.
:: Jane Hirshfield
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the objective correlative of subjective experience
:: T.S. Eliot
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the natural object is always the adequate symbol.
:: Donald Hall
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one of the functions of poetry is to keep the memory of people and places and things and happenings alive.
:: Jane Kenyon
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the prophetic function of the poem, waiting on the page for the breath the will come and make it alive, make it new
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lyric poetry…the personal lyric…incantatory blessings
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i think culture invented lyric poetry along with religion and philosophy to help people understand the world and to discover ordering powers.
:: Gregory Orr
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an abiding dearest freshness deep down of things
:: Gerard Manley Hopkins
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my ear is not working, my poetry ear. i can’t write a line that doesn’t sound like pots and pans falling out of the cupboard.
:: Jane Kenyon
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