--- title: "Meaning & Key Takeaway of: Poetry is the language of intensity…" description: "\"Poetry is the language of intensity. Because we are going to die, an expression of intensity is justified.\" — C.D. Wright" image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/148/c-d-wright-28793_expression_poetry-is-the-language-of-intensity-beca_470360.png" --- # Poetry is the language of intensity. Because we are going… ![“Poetry is the language of intensity. Because we are going to die, an expression of intensity is justified.” quote by C.D. Wright](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/148/c-d-wright-28793_expression_poetry-is-the-language-of-intensity-beca_470360.png) [Download](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/148/c-d-wright-28793_expression_poetry-is-the-language-of-intensity-beca_470360.png) [Open image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/148/c-d-wright-28793_expression_poetry-is-the-language-of-intensity-beca_470360.png) > “Poetry is the language of intensity. Because we are going to die, an expression of intensity is justified.” [C.D. Wright](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/c-d-wright/) ## About This Quote This interpretation was drafted with AI assistance. It is one reading of the quote, not the author's own explanation. Poetry’s urgency stems from mortality; expressing intense feelings is justified because life is finite. **In simple terms:** Poetry is intense because we die, so expression is warranted. Key Takeaway Embrace urgency in artistic expression. Themes mortality artistic urgency existentialism Mood contemplative inspirational Type literary philosophical When to use this quote - writing workshops - personal essays - public readings - memorial events Key Concepts philosophical creative impulse Questions to Reflect On - How does awareness of death shape creative work? - When is restraint more powerful than intensity? A Different Perspective Focus on intensity may overlook subtlety and nuance. ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet [Expression](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/expression/) [Intensity](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/intensity/) [Language](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/language/) [Poetry](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/poetry/) ## Related quotes > [I am about to - or I am going to - die; either expression is used. 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We need it most when we are most…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/erica-jong/we-need-poetry-most-at-those-moments-when-life-astounds-us-with/) [Erica Jong](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/erica-jong/) > [Poetry is a language used in a different way.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/anonymous/poetry-is-a-language-used-in-a-different-way/) [Anonymous](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/anonymous/) > [“I would say poetry is language charged with emotion. It's words, rhythmically organized . . . A poem is a complete little universe. It…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/william-carlos-williams/i-would-say-poetry-is-language-charged-with-emotion-it-s-words/) [William Carlos Williams](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/william-carlos-williams/) > [Poetry was syllable and rhythm. Poetry was the measurement of breath. Poetry was time make audible. 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Lopez > [Poetry is a language in which man explores his own amazement.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-fry/poetry-is-a-language-in-which-man-explores-his-own-amazement/) [Christopher Fry](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-fry/) > [Poetry is the language we speak in the most terrifying or ecstatic passages of our lives. But the very word poetry scares people. They…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/erica-jong/poetry-is-the-language-we-speak-in-the-most-terrifying-or-ecstatic/) [Erica Jong](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/erica-jong/) > [Translation is an interestingly different way to be involved both with poetry and with the language that I've found myself living in much of…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/marilyn-hacker/translation-is-an-interestingly-different-way-to-be-involved-both/) [Marilyn Hacker](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/marilyn-hacker/) > [Poetry is language trying to become bodily experience.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/herbert-mccabe/poetry-is-language-trying-to-become-bodily-experience/) [Herbert McCabe](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/herbert-mccabe/) ## More by C.D. Wright > [There is an idealism associated with poetry I would not dispel but question. It doesn't change anything except within. It shifts your insides around.…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/c-d-wright/there-is-an-idealism-associated-with-poetry-i-would-not-dispel-but/) [C.D. Wright](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/c-d-wright/) > [It is a function of poetry to locate those zones inside us that would be free, and declare them so.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/c-d-wright/it-is-a-function-of-poetry-to-locate-those-zones-inside-us-that-would/) [C.D. Wright](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/c-d-wright/) > [Almost none of the poetries I admire stick to their labels, native or adopted ones. Rather, they are vagrant in their identifications. Tramp poets,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/c-d-wright/almost-none-of-the-poetries-i-admire-stick-to-their-labels-native-or/) [C.D. Wright](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/c-d-wright/) > [“I believe the word used wrongly distorts the world.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/c-d-wright/i-believe-the-word-used-wrongly-distorts-the-world/) [C.D. Wright](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/c-d-wright/) > [One opinion I share with the Dadaists is that art-making presupposes a revolutionary state of mind. Assimilating the practice into commodity or symbol of…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/c-d-wright/one-opinion-i-share-with-the-dadaists-is-that-art-making-presupposes/) [C.D. Wright](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/c-d-wright/) > [Poetry is a necessity of life,](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/c-d-wright/poetry-is-a-necessity-of-life/) [C.D. Wright](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/c-d-wright/) > [Poetry requires deliberate movement in its direction, a filament of faith in its persistence, receptivity to its fundamental worthwhileness. Within its unanesthetized heart there…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/c-d-wright/poetry-requires-deliberate-movement-in-its-direction-a-filament-of/) [C.D. Wright](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/c-d-wright/) > [“If the incision of our words amounts to nothing but a feeling, a slow motion, it will still cut a better swath than the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/c-d-wright/if-the-incision-of-our-words-amounts-to-nothing-but-a-feeling-a-slow/) [C.D. Wright](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/c-d-wright/) > [Poetry seems especially like nothing else so much as itself. Poetry is not like, it is the very lining of the inner life.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/c-d-wright/poetry-seems-especially-like-nothing-else-so-much-as-itself-poetry-is/) [C.D. Wright](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/c-d-wright/) > [The artistic reward for refuting the received national tradition is liberation. The price is homelessness. Interior exile.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/c-d-wright/the-artistic-reward-for-refuting-the-received-national-tradition-is/) [C.D. Wright](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/c-d-wright/) > [I have taught the long poem off and on for years. The more book-length poems I read and studied and taught the more interested…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/c-d-wright/i-have-taught-the-long-poem-off-and-on-for-years-the-more-book-length/) [C.D. Wright](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/c-d-wright/) > [Everyone in their car needs love.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/c-d-wright/everyone-in-their-car-needs-love/) [C.D. Wright](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/c-d-wright/) > [I think a book-length poem stands about as good a chance as a collection of individual poems in reaching its field of ears. This…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/c-d-wright/i-think-a-book-length-poem-stands-about-as-good-a-chance-as-a/) [C.D. Wright](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/c-d-wright/) > [“If religion, she also liked to say, is the opiate of the masses, fundamentalism is the amphetamine.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/c-d-wright/if-religion-she-also-liked-to-say-is-the-opiate-of-the-masses/) [C.D. Wright](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/c-d-wright/) > [I am suggesting that the radical of poetry lies not in the resolution of doubts but in their proliferation](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/c-d-wright/i-am-suggesting-that-the-radical-of-poetry-lies-not-in-the-resolution/) [C.D. Wright](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/c-d-wright/) [Explore all 19 C.D. Wright quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/c-d-wright/) ## More Expression quotes > [The sublime in art is the attempt to express the infinite without finding in the realm of phenomena any object which proves itself fitting…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/georg-wilhelm-friedrich-hegel/the-sublime-in-art-is-the-attempt-to-express-the-infinite-without/) [Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/georg-wilhelm-friedrich-hegel/) > [“What does it mean to be a self-conscious animal? The idea is ludicrous, if it is not monstrous. It means to know that one…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/ernest-becker/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-self-conscious-animal-the-idea-is-ludicrous/) [Ernest Becker](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/ernest-becker/) > [Instead of asking a girl how she feels, try looking through her recently listened to songs. 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