“I believe the poem is a sacramental act, pure devotion to whatever may be revealed only through the music of intuition. The… — Sam Hamill Copy Share Image
What poetry does above all else is develop sensibility. And that's what makes poetry so dangerous. That's why poetry is so good… — Sam Hamill Copy Share Image
The only thing we all agree on, virtually every poet in this country, is that this Administration is really frightening, and we… — Sam Hamill Copy Share Image
I'm a poet who practices Zen. And it's not, I'm somebody who practices Zen who writes poetry. There's no separation for me. — Sam Hamill Copy Share Image
When these idiot rightwingers start complaining about poetry being political, I'm fond of reciting Sappho to them, who excluded men from her… — Sam Hamill Copy Share Image
I'm basically a poetry scholar, and I'm happier here in my studio with my row of Chinese dictionaries than I am, frankly,… — Sam Hamill Copy Share Image
It would be nice if all the Republicans could put poetry in a little box and put the box under the bed… — Sam Hamill Copy Share Image
We poets don't tend to be certain a lot. Much of our art is made out of our own uncertainty. And there… — Sam Hamill Copy Share Image
Poetry teaches us things that cannot be learned in prose, such as certain kinds of irony or the importance of the unsaid.… — Sam Hamill Copy Share Image
We're certainly not perfect, and we're not probably even better than anybody else, except that perhaps we are given to certain kinds… — Sam Hamill Copy Share Image
I was a violent, self-destructive teenager, who was adopted right at the end of World War II. I was lied to and… — Sam Hamill Copy Share Image
I wrote a number of poems about Kah Tai lagoon, when Safeway was building that huge, ugly store down there where I… — Sam Hamill Copy Share Image
Poetry transcends the nation-state. Poetry transcends government. It brings the traditional concept of power to its knees. I have always believed poetry… — Sam Hamill Copy Share Image
Kenneth Rexroth took me under his wing for a brief period. I was fifteen years old, and I was smoking a lot… — Sam Hamill Copy Share Image
I'll say that this is probably the best time for poetry since the T'ang dynasty. All the rest of the world is… — Sam Hamill Copy Share Image
Poets should speak out against what we see as the assault against our Constitution and the warmongering that's going on. I'm perfectly… — Sam Hamill Copy Share Image
Galway Kinnell came out with that wonderful big, breathy, hollow voice of his and read, for the first time in public, "The… — Sam Hamill Copy Share Image
One of the things I love about translation is it obliterates the self. When I'm trying to figure out what Tu Fu… — Sam Hamill Copy Share Image
Each of us as poets, as decent suffering human beings, has to find a way to run our lives that is compassionate… — Sam Hamill Copy Share Image
Sometimes people come up and they get infatuated with some little brief imagistic poem or something, and they say, "Oh, I really… — Sam Hamill Copy Share Image
I think a lot of American poets are swimming-pool Soviets. A lot of them have taken the comfortable, self-protective route too often.… — Sam Hamill Copy Share Image
I haven't seen any poet in this country behave nearly as rudely as Newt Gingrich or Bill O'Reilly. I'm not asking these… — Sam Hamill Copy Share Image
It's difficult to put your own bare ass out on the limb every time you sit down to write a poem. But… — Sam Hamill Copy Share Image
That's one of those questions that would just love to have a pat answer. You know, poetry's job is to make us… — Sam Hamill Copy Share Image
Korea's first Zen Master-poet wrote simple yet elegant poetry of the world he inhabited, both physically and spiritually, and of daily insights-a… — Sam Hamill Copy Share Image
Ho Kyuns poetry is in the tradition of his master, the incomparable Tu Fu, while remaining fully his own. Writing nine centuries… — Sam Hamill Copy Share Image
My ethics, my sense of morality, my work ethic, my sense of compassion for suffering humanity, all of that comes directly out… — Sam Hamill Copy Share Image
If only we could touch the things of this world at their center, if we could only hear tiny leaves of birch struggling toward… — Sam Hamill Copy Share
I'm basically a poetry scholar, and I'm happier here in my studio with my row of Chinese dictionaries than I am, frankly, at Lincoln… — Sam Hamill Copy Share
We poets don't tend to be certain a lot. Much of our art is made out of our own uncertainty. And there is a… — Sam Hamill Copy Share
Each of us as poets, as decent suffering human beings, has to find a way to run our lives that is compassionate toward one… — Sam Hamill Copy Share
Korea's first Zen Master-poet wrote simple yet elegant poetry of the world he inhabited, both physically and spiritually, and of daily insights-a pause along… — Sam Hamill Copy Share
There's a fragment that goes, "Some say the most beautiful thing in the world is a great cavalry riding down over the hill. Others… — Sam Hamill Copy Share
I think a lot of American poets are swimming-pool Soviets. A lot of them have taken the comfortable, self-protective route too often. I know… — Sam Hamill Copy Share
Nothing will change until we demolish the "we-they" mentality. We are human, and therefore all human concerns are ours. And those concerns are personal. — Sam Hamill Copy Share
I'm a poet who practices Zen. And it's not, I'm somebody who practices Zen who writes poetry. There's no separation for me. — Sam Hamill Copy Share
Kenneth Rexroth took me under his wing for a brief period. I was fifteen years old, and I was smoking a lot of heroin… — Sam Hamill Copy Share
One of the things I love about translation is it obliterates the self. When I'm trying to figure out what Tu Fu has to… — Sam Hamill Copy Share
The oldest cliché in the world is about "what's lost in translation," but you don't very often read much intelligent about what's gained by… — Sam Hamill Copy Share
The only thing we all agree on, virtually every poet in this country, is that this Administration is really frightening, and we want something… — Sam Hamill Copy Share
George W. Bush is using language that's a mirror image of the language of Osama bin Laden when he says, "We have God on… — Sam Hamill Copy Share
I would say that my great political awakening was really born on Okinawa, reading Albert Camus: the "Neither Victims nor Executioners" essay and The… — Sam Hamill Copy Share
