01c. 1950 ADWorks of art imitate and provoke other works of art, the process is the source of art itself.Edward Hirsch / quote ↗
02c. 1950 ADI did not know the work of mourningIs like carrying a bag of cementUp a mountain at nightThe mountaintop is not in sightBecause there is no mountaintopPoor Sisyphus griefI did not know I would struggleThrough a ragged underbrushWithout an upward path...Look closely and you will seeAlmost everyone carrying bagsOf cement on their shouldersThat’s why it takes courageTo get out of bed in the morningAnd climb into the day.Edward Hirsch / quote ↗
03c. 1950 ADIf you had told me, though, when I was twenty-four that I would write about Skokie, Illinois, where I grew up, I would have said, ‘You’re out of your mind. Why would I have Skokie in a poem?’ But you become resigned. Your job is to write about the life you actually have.Edward Hirsch / quote ↗
04c. 1950 ADWhy did the sun rise this morningIt's not naturalI don't want to see the lightIt's not time to close the casketOr say Kaddish for my sonI've already buried two fathersWith a mother to comeIsn't that enough Lord who wants usTo exalt and santify HimI don't want to wear the mourner's ribbonOr wake up crying every morningFor God knows how longI don't want to tuck my son into the groundAs if we were putting him to bedFor the last timeClose the prayer book I will not pretendThat God brings peace upon usAnd upon all IsraelI don't want to hear anyoneScolding me from her wheelchairBecause I'm crying too hardI'm not worried about a heart attackNothingnessYou've already broken my heartI will not forgive youSun of emptinessSky of blank cloudsI will not forgive youIndifferent GodUntil you give back my sonEdward Hirsch / quote ↗
05c. 1950 ADFriedrich Rückert wrote 425 poemsAfter his two youngest childrenDied from scarlet feverWithin sixteen days of each otherIn 1833 and 1834 he could not copeAnd often thought they had gone outFor a while "they'll be home soon"He told himself to tell his wife"They're only taking a long walk"Mahler scored five of those poemsIn 1901 and 1904 for a vocalistAnd an orchestra to break your heartAs soon as I heard the plaintive oboe And the descending movement of the hornAnd the lyric baritone enteringI felt I should not be listeningTo Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau singingKindertotenlieder with the Berlin PhilharmonicMahler's wife was superstitiousAnd thought he was chancing disasterWith Songs on the Death of Children"Now the sun wants to rise so brightlyAs if nothing terrible had happened overnightThat tragedy happened to me alone"Mahler knew he could never have written themAfter his four-year-old daughter diedFrom scarlet fever three years laterHe said he felt sorry for himselfThat he needed to write these songsAnd for the world that would listen to themEdward Hirsch / quote ↗
06c. 1950 ADAnd every year there is a brief, startling moment When we pause in the middle of a long walk home and Suddenly feel something invisible and weightless Touching our shoulders, sweeping down from the air: It is the autumn wind pressing against our bodies; It is the changing light of fall falling on us.Edward Hirsch / quote ↗
07c. 1950 ADYou're trying to write about something that's sacred. You're trying to bring the seriousness of life and death to it, and you're trying to find a way to dramatize it, and you're trying to give language to it, which is inadequate. But it's important to try.Edward Hirsch / quote ↗
08c. 1950 ADPoetry takes courage because you have to face things and you try to articulate how you feel.Edward Hirsch / quote ↗
09c. 1950 ADDaydreaming is one of the key sources of poetry - a poem often starts as a daydream that finds its way into language - and walking seems to bring a different sort of alertness, an associative kind of thinking, a drifting state of mind.Edward Hirsch / quote ↗
10c. 1950 ADThere are still many tribal cultures where poetry and song, there is just one word for them. There are other cultures with literacy where poetry and song are distinguished. But poetry always remembers that it has its origins in music.Edward Hirsch / quote ↗
11c. 1950 ADThe muse, the beloved, and duende are three ways of thinking of what is the source of poetry, and all three seem to me different names or different ways to think about something that is not entirely reasonable, not entirely subject to the will, not entirely rational.Edward Hirsch / quote ↗
12c. 1950 ADThe commitment to working at poetry is important because a poet is a maker, and a poem is a made thing. We have to honor our feelings by working to transform them into something meaningful and lasting.Edward Hirsch / quote ↗
14c. 1950 ADSomeone who's awake in the middle of the night is a soul consciousness when everyone else is asleep, and that creates a feeling of solitude in poetry that I very much like.Edward Hirsch / quote ↗
15c. 1950 ADYou're shadowed by your own dream, especially as you get older, of trying to create something that will last in poetry. And so, you're working on its behalf.Edward Hirsch / quote ↗
16c. 1950 ADThere have always been great defenses of poetry, and I've tried to write mine, and I think all of my work and criticism is a defense of poetry to try and keep something alive in poetry.Edward Hirsch / quote ↗
17c. 1950 ADWhen I taught at the University of Houston in the Creative Writing program, we required the poets to take workshops in fiction writing, and we required the fiction writers to take workshops in poetry.Edward Hirsch / quote ↗
18c. 1950 ADI don't think you can read poetry while you're watching television very well.Edward Hirsch / quote ↗
19c. 1950 ADThe 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 inhere in poems alone.Edward Hirsch / quote ↗
20c. 1950 ADThere's never been a culture without poetry in the history of the world.Edward Hirsch / quote ↗
21c. 1950 ADIn every culture, in every language, there is expressive play, expressive word play; there's language use to different purposes that we would call poetry.Edward Hirsch / quote ↗
22c. 1950 ADI don't think poetry will die, but I think that poetry does demand a certain kind of attention to language. It does demand a certain space in order to read it, and I think that space is somewhat threatened by the lack of attention that people have and the amount of time that they give to things.Edward Hirsch / quote ↗
23c. 1950 ADI had feelings that I didn't know what to do with, and I felt better when I started writing them. I thought of it as poetry. I did notice girls really liked it. Better than football. They liked the combination.Edward Hirsch / quote ↗
24c. 1950 ADI'd say people do need some help with poetry because I think poetry just helps takes us to places that Americans aren't always accustomed to going.Edward Hirsch / quote ↗
