124 Quotes by James Arthur

It makes sense to me that the polyglot wouldn’t know what language he dreamed in.

Years ago I used to set my alarm for 4 am, so that I could wake up in the middle of a dream and move directly into writing. I guess my favorite poems contain a mixture of intuitive and analytical thought.

For me, poetry is a way of thinking, and like many poets, I’m driven by the idea of trying to find the impossible, perfect words: the words that will hold my subject.

For me, intuitive thinking means associative thinking; intuition causes us to introduce narrative or figurative elements into a poem before we’re able to explain why those elements belong.

It’s not realistic to imagine that any poem will last forever. Our species won’t last forever! We try to capture and preserve our impressions of reality because it’s all going away: everything we think and remember, everything we’ve ever felt, everyone we love.

If art doesn’t require an audience, can an intimate conversation be a work of art? Can a thought be a work of art? Maybe. I don’t know. These questions are completely hypothetical for me, because I love interacting with audiences. I want my poems to be heard.

When I started reciting my own poems in public, I worried that it would seem too theatrical, but now I find recitation very natural, because it allows me to address audiences directly.

I try not to think in terms of what poems or poets should do. Most of us appreciate a wide diversity in music, in cooking, in movies, but in our own medium, poetry, we often fail to make allowances for tastes and projects other than our own.

I often write from memory by walking around and talking to myself. Even when I’m working at a computer I write out loud, so that I can hear the poem’s rhythm.