#poetic

English dramatic literature is, of course, dominated by Shakespeare; and it is almost inevitable that an English reader should measure the value of other poetic drama by the standards which Shakespeare has already implanted in his mind. ↗

— Lytton Strachey

#already #course #dominated #drama #dramatic

Poetic talent doesn't operate in a vacuum. There is a spirit of Polish poetry. ↗

— Wislawa Szymborska

#poetic #poetry #polish #spirit #talent

Today not even a universal fire could make the torrential poetic production of our time disappear. But it is exactly a question of production, that is, of hand-made products which are subject to the laws of taste and fashion. ↗

— Eugenio Montale

#disappear #even #exactly #fashion #fire

APPLES SCENT, You arrive in the basement. Immediatly it catches you. Apples are here, lying on fruit trays, turned crates. You didn't think about it. You had no wish to be flooded by this melancholic wave. But you can't resist. Apple scent is a breaker. How could you manage without this childhood, bitter and sweet ? Shrivelled fruits surely are delicious, from this feak dryness where candied taste seems to have wormed in each wrinkle. But you don't wish to eat them. Particularly don't turn into an identifiable taste this floating power of smell. Say that it smells good, strong? But not ..... It's beyond .... An inner scent, scent of a better oneself. Here is shut up school autumn, with purple ink we scratch paper with down strokes and thin strokes. Rain bangs against glasses, evening will be long .... But apple perfume is more than past. You think about formerly because of fullness and intensity from a remembrance of salpetered cellar, dark attic. But it's to live here, stay here, stand up. You have behind you high herbs and damp orchards. Ahead it's like a warm blow given in the shade. Scent got all browns, all reds with a bit of green acid. Scent distilled skin softness, its tiny roughness. Lips dried, we alreadyt know that this thirst is not to be slaked. Nothing would happen if you bite the white flesh. You would need to become october, mud floor, moss of cellar, rain, expectation. Apple scent is painful. It's from a stronger life, a slowness we deserve no more. ↗

— Philippe Delerm

#life

Paper is the strongest material in the world. Things under which a mountain will crumble, you can place on paper and it will hold: beauty at its most intense; love at its fiercest; the greatest grief; the greatest rage. ↗

— Nadeem Aslam

#beauty

To Wallace Stevens' post-Nietzschean formula 'God and the imagination are one,' these women poets would add a crucial third element: God and the imagination and my body are one. ↗

— Alicia Suskin Ostriker

#imagination

When that part of the woman meets with a man, all the flowers in the world suddenly bloom! All the birds of the world gather together and sing. The entire world turns golden, and your body becomes completely relaxed and you're not sure whether you're floating on clouds of feathers. The universe comes alive, like fireworks in the night. ↗

— Kim Dong Hwa

#poetic #sex #love

It was like I’d stepped out into an afterlife. Only there were no angels. ↗

— Lucy Christopher

#afterlife

And now, my poor old woman, why are you crying so bitterly? It is autumn. The leaves are falling from the trees like burning tears- the wind howls. Why must you mimic them? ↗

— Mervyn Peake

#copy #cry #crying #despair #fall

The Bible is not interested in arguing, because if you state a thesis of belief you have already stated it's opposite; if you say, I believe in God, you have already suggested the possibility of not believing in him. [p.250] ↗

— Northrop Frye

#poetic-theory #world-culture #mythology