Throughout his work, Philip Levine’s most powerful commitment has been to the failed and lost, the marginal, the unloved, the unwanted. Edward Hirsch Read Quote
Liberty Brass’ is a small machine that unfolds in a single unpunctuated wave, which is interrupted by the rotating sign, the refrain. Each part is meant to do its work in relentless progression. Edward Hirsch Read Quote
Poetry takes place in time. It is a durational. Things take place in sequence. Edward Hirsch Read Quote
I’ve been fascinated over the years by the way refrains work. Think, say, of the refrains in Yeats’ ballads. Ideally, each time the refrain comes back in a poem, it is both the same and different. It works by counterpoint and reiteration. It accrues meaning. Edward Hirsch Read Quote
James Salter is a consummate storyteller. His manners are precise and elegant; he has a splendid New York accent; he runs his hands through his gray hair and laughs boyishly. Edward Hirsch Read Quote
Writing poetry is such an intense experience that it helps to start the process in a casual or wayward frame of mind. Edward Hirsch Read Quote
I love the leisurely amplitude, the spaciousness, of taking a walk, of heading somewhere, anywhere, on foot. I love the sheer adventure of it: setting out and taking off. Edward Hirsch Read Quote
Our culture has become increasingly intolerant of that acute sorrow, that intense mental anguish and deep remorse which may be defined as grief. We want to medicate such sorrow away. Edward Hirsch Read Quote
The idea that a poem was a made thing stayed with me, and I decided then that I wanted to be an artist, not just a diarist. So I put myself through a kind of apprenticeship in writing poetry, and I understood even then that my practice as a poet was deeply related to my reading. Edward Hirsch Read Quote
You are always trying to make something that is more than the sum of its parts. Edward Hirsch Read Quote
