287 Quotes by Edward Hirsch

Gertrude Stein said, “I write for myself and strangers.” I would say I write for myself, strangers and the great dead.

Poetry never loses its appeal. Sometimes its audience wanes and sometimes it swells like a wave. But the essential mystery of being human is always going to engage and compel us. We’re involved in a mystery. Poetry uses words to put us in touch with that mystery. We’re always going to need it.

And when I’m writing well and when I’m inside the feeling, then I can do fairly complicated things with some fluency.

I think that the dark side of MFA programs is that they’re generating more poets than the culture can absorb and there are more people writing poetry than possibly read it or can certainly earn a living around it.

Now, the process of writing poetry is very messy. Not systematic, never quite the same.

I don’t think poetry will die, but I think that poetry does demand a certain kind of attention to language.

There’s been no poet, no great poet in the history of poetry who hasn’t also been a great reader of poetry. This is sometimes distressing to my students when I tell them this.

Sometimes I have a feeling that I just can’t get rid of. Sometimes there’s an experience that I want to write about that I have to get off my chest. Sometimes there are some words that appeal to you.

Now, that can be a traditional form or it can be something you’re inventing. It can be the development of a metaphor, the working through of a metaphor.