287 Quotes by Edward Hirsch

It's not important - it's not necessary that you read everything. What is necessary is that you care about things that you read and that you find something that really matters to you and you try and make something like that.

Poems mesmerized me, and I felt better when I was writing them, or trying to - more in touch with something deep and dark within myself.

The way to become a poet is to read poetry and to imitate what you read and to read passionately and widely and in as involved a way as you can.

There's always some place to go. You don't need workshops, you don't need friends necessarily, you can be befriended by literature itself.

I find great consolation in having a lot of poetry books around. I believe that writing poetry and reading it are deeply intertwined. I've always delighted in the company of the poets I've read.

I would keep in mind to a young poet that you are entering into something that is very important, that has always been important in terms of human concerns.

There are still many tribal cultures where poetry and song, there is just one word for them. There are other cultures with literacy where poetry and song are distinguished. But poetry always remembers that it has its origins in music.

And when you are entering into poetry, whatever stage you're at, you are participating in something with a very long and noble tradition.

I think ancient cultures incorporated death into the experience of life in a more natural way than we have done. In our obsessive focus on youth, on celebrity, our denial of death makes it harder for people who are grieving to find a place for that grief.