10 Quotes by Frederick Seidel

July 4th fireworks exhale over the Hudson sadly.It is beautiful that they have to disappear.It's like the time you said I love you madly.That was an hour ago. It's been a fervent year.

The Earth keeps turning, night and day, spit-roasting all the tannedTired icebergs and polar bears, making white almost contraband.The biosphere on a rotisserie emits a certain soundThat tells the stars that Earth was moaning pleasure while it drowned.— "Poem by the Bridge at Ten-Shin

Write beautifully what people don’t want to hear.

Too much is almost enough.

I like to hear the sound of form, and I like to hear the sound of it breaking.

I like poems that are daggers that sing. I like poems that for all the power of the sentiments expressed, and all the power to upset and offend, are so well made that they’re achieved things. However much they upset you, they also affect you.

I was left with myself and had to do the one thing I could to survive. I knew it would be difficult to write, very difficult, but I set about doing it.

Sometimes you finish the poem, and that last piece clicks in place. Sometimes the poem is finished with you.

You need a danger to be safe in.