287 Quotes by Edward Hirsch

Works of art imitate and provoke other works of art, the process is the source of art itself.

Words floating in air, lines cut on a page, stanzas carved into units. Poetry is a mode of associative thinking that takes a different route to knowledge than philosophy, its ancient antagonist. It follows its own wayward but resolute path.

I don't think that we should underestimate the capacity of tenderness that poetry opens within us.

Writing fixes the evanescence of sound and holds it against death.

If you had told me, though, when I was twenty-four that I would write about Skokie, Illinois, where I grew up, I would have said, ‘You’re out of your mind. Why would I have Skokie in a poem?’ But you become resigned. Your job is to write about the life you actually have.

I did not know the work of mourningIs like carrying a bag of cementUp a mountain at nightThe mountaintop is not in sightBecause there is no mountaintopPoor Sisyphus griefI did not know I would struggleThrough a ragged underbrushWithout an upward path...Look closely and you will seeAlmost everyone carrying bagsOf cement on their shouldersThat’s why it takes courageTo get out of bed in the morningAnd climb into the day.

And every year there is a brief, startling moment When we pause in the middle of a long walk home and Suddenly feel something invisible and weightless Touching our shoulders, sweeping down from the air: It is the autumn wind pressing against our bodies; It is the changing light of fall falling on us.

I aspire to a poetry of great formal integrity, deep passion and high intellect, and I have many models for how to do that.

Readers bring their own experiences, their own range of - their own wisdom, their own knowledge, their own insights to poem and the meaning of a poem takes place in the negotiation between the poet, the poem and the reader.