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Peter Gizzi on Poetry

twco8850 — Wed, 01 May 2013 20:01:08 +0000

…I do not write “about” things but “with” things or “out of” things. And I certainly do not map out a poem before I write it…I often learn after the fact of writing a poem what it may ultimately mean, and often even that notion of meaning shifts as the poem and I move through time (p.197-198).

-Peter Gizzi comments on his poem, “Human Memory Is Organic” in T&W book Structure & Surprise : Engaging Poetic Turns

Wisława Szymborska

twco8850 — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 17:16:22 +0000

Inspiration is not the exclusive privilege of poets or artists generally. There is, has been, and will always be a certain group of people whom inspiration visits. It’s made up of all those who’ve consciously chosen their calling and do their job with love and imagination. It may include doctors, teachers, gardeners — and I could list a hundred more professions. Their work becomes one continuous adventure as long as they manage to keep discovering new challenges in it. Difficulties and setbacks never quell their curiosity. A swarm of new questions emerges from every problem they solve. Whatever inspiration is, it’s born from a continuous “I don’t know.”

-Wisława Szymborska from T&W book Illuminations: Great Writers on Writing

John Keats

twco8850 — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 16:18:57 +0000

Had I been nervous about its being a perfect piece, and with that view asked advice, and trembled over every page, it would not have been written; for it is not in my nature to fumble — I will write independently. I have written independently without Judgment. I may write independently, and with Judgment, hereafter. The Genius of Poetry must work out its own salvation in a man: it cannot be matured by law and precept, but by sensation and watchfulness in itself. That which is creative must create itself — In Endymion, I leaped headlong into the sea, and thereby have become better acquainted with the soundings, the quicksands, and the rocks, than if I had stayed upon the green shore, and piped a silly pipe, and took tea and comfortable advice. I was never afraid of failure…

- John Keats

To find more writers’ insights about writing, read T&W’s book Illuminations: Great Writers on Writing.

Ernest Hemingway

twco8850 — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 15:04:48 +0000

For a true writer each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed.

How simple the writing of literature would be if it were only necessary to write in another way that has been well written. It is because we have had such great writers in the past that a writer is driven far out past where he can go, out to where no one can help him.

-Ernest Hemingway from T&W book Illuminations: Great Writers on Writing