Hierarchy, as in the Catholic Church, has to do with power, and vertical attention has to do with longing. — Robert Bly Copy Share Image
I felt a longing to compose a radical or root poem that would speak to what has its back turned to me. — Robert Bly Copy Share Image
Myth and poetry represent a reservoir of vertical thinking, which we could also call longing and gratitude to ancestors. We need that… — Robert Bly Copy Share Image
Some people can't go into church any longer to feel this longing, but they still have the longing, so what do they… — Robert Bly Copy Share Image
Vertical attention is not the same as, and doesn't evolve from nor imply, hierarchy. We could say that hierarchy is associated with… — Robert Bly Copy Share Image
All of Japan once a year will get up on their rooftops, because that's the night that the shepherd boy from one… — Robert Bly Copy Share Image
We know that the adult in a certain sense has an attitude toward life exactly opposite to the attitude of commercials. Commercials… — Robert Bly Copy Share Image
“Finding the Father My friend, this body offers to carry us for nothing– as the ocean carries logs. So on some days… — Robert Bly Copy Share Image
I use the phrase 'sibling society' to suggest a culture fundamentally without fathers, mothers, grandfathers, grandmothers, or ancestors. The thinking is horizontal. — Robert Bly Copy Share
All of Japan once a year will get up on their rooftops, because that's the night that the shepherd boy from one side of… — Robert Bly Copy Share
I got about half the time I wanted to write poetry. I got about half the time I needed to be a father. So… — Robert Bly Copy Share
Every noon as the clock hands arrive at twelve, I want to tie the two arms together, And walk out of the bank carrying… — Robert Bly Copy Share
Rumi is astounding, fertile, abundant, almost more an excitable library of poetry than a person. — Robert Bly Copy Share
One could say the higher the spirit goes, the more deeply the soul sinks down into the waters of melancholy and tragedy. Drowning in… — Robert Bly Copy Share
Don't go outside your house to see flowers. My friend, don't bother with that excursion. Inside your body there are flowers. One flower has… — Robert Bly Copy Share
The models of adulthood are disappearing fast. How can two people have a new marriage if neither of them is an adult? — Robert Bly Copy Share
I have spent many years trying to recover a common language, one that can cross the distance between people. — Robert Bly Copy Share
One out of three black men are in the criminal justice system in some form. Their despair is beginning to resonate through the entire… — Robert Bly Copy Share
Sociological prose is generally written without images in an exact form for an academic audience. — Robert Bly Copy Share
We spend our life until we’re twenty deciding what parts of ourself to put into the bag, and we spend the rest of our… — Robert Bly Copy Share
Every modern male has, lying at the bottom of his psyche, a large, primitive being covered with hair down to his feet. Making contact… — Robert Bly Copy Share
My feeling is that poetry is also a healing process, and then when a person tries to write poetry with depth or beauty, he… — Robert Bly Copy Share
The ancestors are very much invested in the children, because the children are the ones who are going to continue the world that the… — Robert Bly Copy Share
