The poet wants justice. And the poet wants art. In poetry we can't have one without the other. — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
My focus is on the reader and that the poet's job is not to inspire himself or herself. The poet's job is… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
I would keep in mind to a young poet that you are entering into something that is very important, that has always… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
I think it's true that that's something that poetry can go to school on fiction. I think poetry can go to fiction… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
You're alone with yourself and your own feelings and that gives you deeper access to what you need to get in touch… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
Ultimately you're trying to reach across and find some other person, some other human warmth. But it is, especially in written poetry,… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
In high school I was leafing through an anthology that our teachers had given up and I found a poem, I go,… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
Then I found another one, grandpa's poem. It turned out it had been written by Emily Brontë and it wasn't my grandfather's… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
The muse, the beloved, and duende are three ways of thinking of what is the source of poetry, and all three seem… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
The mysterious thing about writing poetry is that when you're - when things are going poorly, when you're not thinking well, even… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
Emily Dickinson calls previous poets her kinsmen of the shelf. You can always be consoled by your kinsmen of the shelf and… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
Often you've read another poem that you think is so beautiful that you'd like to make something like that. And so you… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
Poetry is a form of necessary speech... I have sought to restore the aura of sacred practice that accompanies true poetic creation,… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
I would be happier if people who went through MFA programs also were already, by then, deeply committed readers of poetry because… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
I think that the dark side of MFA programs is that they're generating more poets than the culture can absorb and there… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
A certain construct of emotions that really define who you are and who you will become and I feel very much that… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
I would say there are different kinds of poems. There are things that poets in the history of poetry hit upon when… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
Scholars of the Hebrew bible define something they call wisdom literature and I would say clearly the poetry of wisdom is something… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
When I was a freshman in college I went to Grinnell College in Iowa. I brought my poems to my freshman humanities… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
There's been no poet, no great poet in the history of poetry who hasn't also been a great reader of poetry. This… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
The sole literary presence from my childhood was my grandfather, a Jewish immigrant from Latvia, who eccentrically copied poems into the backs… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
So, some of the most difficult formal poems that I've written, say one sentence sonnets, I've been able to do those fairly… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
And when my second book had come out, "Wild Gratitude," I went to Pearl London's class and she worked through different drafts… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
In American tradition a certain kind of, I would say, desperate American friendliness in which the poet tries to reach out through… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
I didn't read poetry seriously until college, when I really began to devour it in a very intense way. I also discovered… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
And a lot of poetry is putting yourself back into the state of wonder that you have before things when you're a… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
When I taught at the University of Houston in the Creative Writing program, we required the poets to take workshops in fiction… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
I think poetry will survive and I don't think it will be the end of poetry. Our tremendous onslaught of mass media… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
Poetry is meant to inspire readers and listeners, to connect them more deeply to themselves even as it links them more fully… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
We're trying to make something that lasts in language and there's no question that many fiction writers began as poets and it's… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
I find great consolation in having a lot of poetry books around. I believe that writing poetry and reading it are deeply… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
I started then to try and shape something rather than just express it and when I started to shape something and to… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
I had feelings that I didn't know what to do with, and I felt better when I started writing them. I thought… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
The terms of poetry - some simple, some complicated, some ancient, some new - should bring us closer to what we're hearing,… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
When you find it you become the secret addressee of a literary text and I felt that their reader had been left… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
Poetry never loses its appeal. Sometimes its audience wanes and sometimes it swells like a wave. But the essential mystery of being… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
Someone who's awake in the middle of the night is a soul consciousness when everyone else is asleep, and that creates a… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
I don't have a set schedule to work on poetry at any given time, at the same time every day, but I… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
I think there are different kinds of poetry for different stages of life and there's the wild, exuberance of youth, there's the… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
I just think that limits the kinds of experiences that people can have with poetry. But, poetry will survive; I don't worry… — 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
