#poets

For a moment at least, be a smile on someone else’s face. ↗

— Dejan Stojanovic

#dejan-stojanovic #face #literature #literature-quotes #moment

In the essence of truth lies deceit. ↗

— Dejan Stojanovic

#dejan-stojanovic #essence #literature #literature-quotes #philosophy

Pose your questions to people and you will get countless useless answers. ↗

— Dejan Stojanovic

#books #countless #dejan-stojanovic #literature #literature-quotes

We measure everything by ourselves with almost a necessary conceit. ↗

— Dejan Stojanovic

#conceit #dejan-stojanovic #literature #literature-quotes #measure

Even if you are alone you wage war with yourself. ↗

— Dejan Stojanovic

#books #dejan-stojanovic #literature #literature-quotes #philosophy

Get close to grass and you’ll see a star. ↗

— Dejan Stojanovic

#grass #literature #literature-quotes #philosophy #poetry

The deeper thought is, the taller it becomes. ↗

— Dejan Stojanovic

#deep-thoughts #dejan-stojanovic #literature #literature-quotes #philosophy

Either all lights are turned off or one inner light is missing. ↗

— Dejan Stojanovic

#dejan-stojanovic #inner #light #lights #literature

There is a moonlight note in the Moonlight Sonata; there is a thunder note in an angry sky. ↗

— Dejan Stojanovic

#dejan-stojanovic #literature #literature-quotes #moon #moonlight

Nobody reads poetry, we are told at every inopportune moment. I read poetry. I am somebody. I am the people, too. It can be allowed that an industrious quantity of contemporary American poetry is consciously written for a hermetic constituency; the bulk is written for the bourgeoisie, leaving a lean cut for labor. Only the hermetically aimed has a snowball's chance in hell of reaching its intended ears. One proceeds from this realization. A staggering figure of vibrant, intelligent people can and do live without poetry, especially without the poetry of their time. This figure includes the unemployed, the rank and file, the union brass, banker, scientist, lawyer, doctor, architect, pilot, and priest. It also includes most academics, most of the faculty of the humanities, most allegedly literary editors and most allegedly literary critics. They do so--go forward in their lives, toward their great reward, in an engulfing absence of poetry--without being perceived or perceiving themselves as hobbled or deficient in any significant way. It is nearly true, though I am often reminded of a Transtromer broadside I saw in a crummy office building in San Francisco: We got dressed and showed the house You live well the visitor said The slum must be inside you. If I wanted to understand a culture, my own for instance, and if I thought such an understanding were the basis for a lifelong inquiry, I would turn to poetry first. For it is my confirmed bias that the poets remain the most 'stunned by existence,' the most determined to redeem the world in words.. ↗

— C.D. Wright

#poetry #poets #intelligence