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
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
In a way, that's also a recognition that Dante needs Virgil and that the Inferno needs the Aeneid and that the epic… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
Daydreaming is one of the key sources of poetry - a poem often starts as a daydream that finds its way into… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
A great model for this is the way that Dante calls on Virgil at the beginning of 'The Inferno,' 'The Divine Comedy,'… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
I was once doing a question and answer period with the novelist Jane Smiley in a bookstore and someone asked us what… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
Rhythm is sound in motion. It is related to the pulse, the heartbeat, the way we breathe. It rises and falls. It… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
As far as I'm concerned, freedom is the most important thing to creativity. You should feel free to write in whatever way,… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
I've been fascinated over the years by the way refrains work. Think, say, of the refrains in Yeats' ballads. Ideally, each time… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
Sometimes the title comes to you at the beginning, sometimes it comes at the end. The very best way in my experience… — 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
So, the process of revision, it's not systematic. But for me, I mean, I know a lot of poets who write out… — 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
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 it was the title August 13th for most of the way and then near the end, sometime in the process, I… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
I think it shapes it in very deep ways that you don't entirely understand. Rainer Maria Rilke said there are two inexhaustible… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
One of the things that distinguishes poetry from ordinary speech is that in a very few number of words, poetry captures some… — 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
Fiction writers learn about the development of metaphor, the use of rhythm, the way that language is compacted in order to express… — 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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
...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 Image
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 Image
