Writing poetry is such an intense experience that it helps to start the process in a casual or wayward frame of mind. — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
The attention deficit disorder of the culture is very distressing in America now and I think it puts a lot of things… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
I believe in rooting poems in actual places, even if you move into some other extraordinary realm. — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
It's very important to me to be an American poet, a Jewish poet, a poet who came of age in the 1960s. — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
The line is a way of framing poetry. All verse is measured by lines. The poetic line immediately announces its difference from… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
And when you are entering into poetry, whatever stage you're at, you are participating in something with a very long and noble… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
“am born a poet, of a low class without doubt yet a poet. This is my nature and vocation”),” — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
I grew up in a middle-class house without books, without art. No one around me wrote poetry or even read it. — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
After my grandfather died I went down to the basement of my family house where my family kept books, anthologies and things… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
A novel takes place over time. It's a historical narrative, and it needs to have a series of peaks and valleys and… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
The idea that a poem was a made thing stayed with me, and I decided then that I wanted to be an… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
“If you had told me, though, when I was twenty-four that I would write about Skokie, Illinois, where I grew up, I… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
That is many poets don't know how to tell a story and they don't have a sense of how to put things… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
There have always been great defenses of poetry, and I've tried to write mine, and I think all of my work and… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
Now, I do say, "It's possible. You might be the first. I'm not saying it's impossible, but the odds are very much… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
I have tried to remember throughout that poetry is made by flesh-and-blood human beings. It is a bloody art. It lives on… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
A person who's only suffering can't write a poem. There are choices to be made, and you need to be objective. — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
I think the culture can absorb so many people writing poetry and trying to earn their living in poetry. — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
I don't think poetry will die, but I think that poetry does demand a certain kind of attention to language. — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
There's the brilliant audacity of youth that poets strike upon in their earliest work sometimes that they never can hit upon again. — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
A stress on the system and I think a painful thing for many young poets who are looking to find a life… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
I started writing poetry as a teenager in suburban Chicago out of emotional desperation. — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
Now, the process of writing poetry is very messy. Not systematic, never quite the same — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
Poems mesmerized me, and I felt better when I was writing them, or trying to - more in touch with something deep… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
I guess that would have been 1968. I was a freshman in college and I wasn't writing good poems, but I was… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
I found a comfort in trying to solve some poetic problems because there were human ones I just couldn't solve. — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
The way to become a poet is to read poetry and to imitate what you read and to read passionately and widely… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
And what I've found over time is that for me to write a poem that I think is worthy that I can… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
The spiritual desire for poetry can be overwhelming, so much do I need it to experience and name my own perilous depths… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
Reading poetry is an adventure in renewal, a creative act, a perpetual beginning, a rebirth of wonder. — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
First of all I think that poetry is very noble and I always have with me the sense of the nobility of… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
I'd say people do need some help with poetry because I think poetry just helps takes us to places that Americans aren't… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
I began to imitate what I was reading, and I started to become a poet, even though what I was writing were… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
As a reader you have a task to do, you have something to do. You bring your experience to it. It's not… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
And sometimes you look at the first poems by someone and you go, "They have freshness and a sense of wonder that… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
I aspire to a poetry of great formal integrity, deep passion and high intellect, and I have many models for how to… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
I was surprised recently to find a book called "Poetry in Persons" that's coming out about visit to poets to a class… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
When poetry separates from song, then the words have to carry all the rhythm themselves; they have to do all the work.… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
And my experience is the best titles, for me, emerge in the process of writing. They don't usually come at the very beginning and… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share
“I did not know the work of mourning Is like carrying a bag of cement Up a mountain at night The mountaintop is not… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share
“Fall" Fall, falling, fallen. That’s the way the season Changes its tense in the long-haired maples That dot the road; the veiny hand-shaped leaves… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share
I find great consolation in having a lot of poetry books around. I believe that writing poetry and reading it are deeply intertwined. I've… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share
I had feelings that I didn't know what to do with, and I felt better when I started writing them. I thought of it… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share
I think in terms of educating a group of readers, MFA programs are very good. I just think the model of MFA programs in… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share
“Jonson wrote a poem and called his son His best piece of poetrie A lovely line a little loathsome I loved that poem once… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share
After my grandfather died I went down to the basement of my family house where my family kept books, anthologies and things and there… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share
It does demand a certain space in order to read it and I think that space is somewhat threatened by the lack of attention… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share
...I put down these memorandums of my affections in honor of tenderness, in honor of all of those who have been conscripted into the… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share
You'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… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share
The attention deficit disorder of the culture is very distressing in America now and I think it puts a lot of things at risk,… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share
Now, as I've gotten older I've been able to write more quickly. Sometimes I get in the space of something and I can do… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share
Poetry takes courage because you have to face things and you try to articulate how you feel. — Edward Hirsch Copy Share
