#poetry

Poetry is the whispering of a truth by the shouting of the best possible lies ↗

— Oscar Sparrow

#poetry #poetry-of-life #life

I've never been able to write poetry without having vast tracts of dead time. Poetry requires a certain kind of disciplined indolence that the world, including many prose writers, doesn't recognize as discipline. It is, though. It's the discipline to endure hours that you refuse to fill with anything but the possibility of poetry, though you may in fact not be able to write a word of it just then, and though it may be playing practical havoc with your life. It's the discipline of preparedness. ↗

— Christian Wiman

#life

Song of myself A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he. I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven. Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord, A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt, Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose? Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation. ↗

— Walt Whitman

#life #poetry #soul #design

Unjustified ambition kills value, Kills someone else's desire to fly, Cuts their wings, sucks their air. If there is nothing else, it eats its own life. ↗

— Dejan Stojanovic

#ambition #dejan-stojanovic #desire #fly #life

There is always the question why And there is always life, Which doesn't need an answer. ↗

— Dejan Stojanovic

#answers #dejan-stojanovic #life #literature #literature-quotes

Otherwise I got out of bed on two strong legs. It might have been otherwise. I ate cereal, sweet milk, ripe, flawless peach. It might have been otherwise. I took the dog uphill to the birch wood. All morning I did the work I love. At noon I lay down with my mate. It might have been otherwise. We ate dinner together at a table with silver candlesticks. It might have been otherwise. I slept in a bed in a room with paintings on the walls, and planned another day just like this day. But one day, I know, it will be otherwise. ↗

— Jane Kenyon

#life #poetry #life

Choice, and all its attendant energy, is a characteristic of youth. It is before one chooses that one feels desire and longing without fulfillment, which gives an edge to any artistic endeavor. Galway Kinnell recently said in an interview that a young poet has so many choices but an old poet must simply endure his chosen life. ↗

— Mary Ruefle

#poetry #youth #life

Ask him why there are hypocrites in the world.' 'Because it is hard to bear the happiness of others.' 'When are we happy?' 'When we desire nothing and realize that possession is only momentary, and so are forever playing.' 'What is regret?' 'To realize that one has spent one's life worrying about the future.' 'What is sorrow?' 'To long for the past.' 'What is the highest pleasure?' 'To hear a good story. ↗

— Vikram Chandra

#hinduism #pleasure #poetry #sorrow #life

I submitted a poem last night to The New Yorker. They said it can take up to three months to hear back. I got rejected immediately. ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#poetry #rejection #life

Keep Moving... Move forward Let go Give in Decide and just Do Progress every day And make one step forward no matter what's in your way Keep moving, till one day you wake up and you're there. ↗

— Emma Daley

#poem #poetry #poetry-life #poetry-quotes #life