think what you hope for is that at different times of your life you're able to write the poetry that reflects the… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
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
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 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 think the deepest thing is that many fiction writers tell stories but are not elegant writers. But, we're not writing journalism… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
Gertrude Stein said, "I write for myself and strangers." I would say I write for myself, strangers and the great dead. — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
Now, as I've gotten older I've been able to write more quickly. Sometimes I get in the space of something and I… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
And when I'm writing well and when I'm inside the feeling, then I can do fairly complicated things with some fluency. — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
I write a line and then I revise the line and then I write two lines and then I revise lines one… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
Books and newspapers assume a "common reader" that is, a person who knows the things known by other literate persons in the… — 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
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
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 mean, when I was young I could write all through the night and I loved to work late into the night.… — 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 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
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
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
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
I didn't sit down then and start writing poems, but it was in the back of my mind. — 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
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
And my experience is the best titles, for me, emerge in the process of writing. They don't usually come at the very… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
That you write a phrase or you think of something and it seems to have a deeper charge because the title has… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
Sometimes I have a feeling that I just can't get rid of. Sometimes there's an experience that I want to write about… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
But, that was the beginning, though I didn't start writing until I was in high school and when I was in high… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
One, something emotional has to be at stake. There has to be something important for me that I'm writing about. And then… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
You're trying to write about something that's sacred. You're trying to bring the seriousness of life and death to it, and you're… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
James Salter is a consummate storyteller. His manners are precise and elegant; he has a splendid New York accent; he runs his… — 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
Once your poems are completed, you send them into the world. You don't write for a coterie of other writers - you… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
When I was young, I wrote everything, and I thought I would be an all around writer, that I would write everything. — 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
I started writing poetry as a teenager in suburban Chicago out of emotional desperation. — 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
Now, the process of writing poetry is very messy. Not systematic, never quite the same — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
So, it's a continual process of trial and error and then I find things and I throw it out and start again,… — 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
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
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
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
