6 Quotes by Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge

Image is the root of imagination.

We tend to mistrust our own natures, as if uncontrolled we'd be freaky, dangerous, hateful, unacceptable, or at best, dull. I think in our culture we fear wisdom.

Poems arrive. They hide in feelings and images, in weeds and delivery vans, daring us to notice and give them form with our words. They take us to an invisible world where light and dark, inside and outside meet.

Writing a poem is a form of listening, helping me discover what's wrong or frightening in my world as well as what delights me.

We can live quiet, apparently sedate lives if we express our wildness by risking and leaping in our writing... The strangest, most far-out renegade part of ourselves can be expressed in a poem while we sit quietly in our kitchen or bedroom. This can save our lives.

Life can be like a poem that way, with the unexpected appearing in the room, not just on the page.