287 Quotes by Edward Hirsch

I think it’s one of the things that drive lyric poetry, our sense of mortality.

The idea of how to read a poem is based on the idea that poetry needs you as a reader. That the experience of poetry, the meaning in poetry is a kind of circuit that takes place between a poet, a poem and a reader and that meaning doesn’t exist or in here in poems alone.

Now, as I’ve gotten older I’ve been able to write more quickly. Sometimes I get in the space of something and I can do a lot in a day.

The poet wants justice. And the poet wants art. In poetry we can’t have one without the other.

The same soul never steps into the river twice.

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.

So, the process of revision, it’s not systematic. But for me, I mean, I know a lot of poets who write out a draft and then revise it and I think they’re happier people. But, I’m just not able to do it that way. I need to just continually examine it as I do it.

And what I’ve found over time is that for me to write a poem that I think is worthy that I can live with, two things have to happen.

I don’t have a set schedule to work on poetry at any given time, at the same time every day, but I do try to work on poetry every day and I do find some time every day that I can with some exceptions to work on poetry.