"The task is to thread the labyrinth, rattle the Minotaur of truth."
"Condense everything into a ball, and throw it."
"Walt and Emily are the twin fonts of American poetry. And Protestants, like our founders, in the sense of protest against status quo — both grounded in scripture but bound for rapture. They redefined the world around them, Walt wanting to create a voice for the Nation, and Emily hugging inner horizon."
"Don’t worry, if you read, books will find you."
"Another path is to simply see as much as possible, be sentinel for incidence."
"Perhaps our beginning was the painter Degas remarking to Mallarmé he’d always wanted to write a poem, but could never get an idea for one. Mallarmé’s answer was “Poems, my dear Degas, are not made out of ideas, they are made with words.” I would add, yes, but ideas are their armature, the unseen engine, what makes the merry-go-round go round. Learn to use words first — later you’ll have ideas."
"I believe in form and make up my own rules."
"Olson warned against adjectives as leaking energy from matters at hand, and on the whole he is right — distrust anything which impedes the flow."
"Blake insisted all art, visual or verbal, should have a “wiry bounding line.” He said we should take an abstract and give it form and human sinew, voice. He believed the perfect world was the imagination. You have only to connect with it, the more you see, the more you can, led to another Eden."
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