W. W. Norton

Scroll to Info & Navigation

“The bad lover, like the bad poet, perhaps because of a preoccupation with self, is essentially inattentive, doesn’t listen, doesn’t anticipate. Or, just as bad, proceeds by rote, first this thing and then the next, and therefore leaves no opportunity for discovery, or departure. Form to me implies an alertness to the demands of your material and an orchestration of effects. It is some happy combination of the poet’s intent and the poem’s esprit and the necessary compromises between the two. We can’t be too willful, but we must have things in mind. We don’t want to be the wimps of our own poems, but we’d be happy to be led into some lovely places. And we’d like to have some control after we lose control, at least enough to throw light on what has just happened, perhaps even to articulate what it has meant to us. And of course there are moments when we’d be better off being appreciatively silent.”

Stephen Dunn, Walking Light: Essays and Memoirs

Notes

  1. suzifgarcia reblogged this from wwnorton
  2. setecq reblogged this from wwnorton
  3. sincerelykerbie reblogged this from immortels
  4. fleursetcouronnes reblogged this from wwnorton
  5. granogue reblogged this from wwnorton
  6. flasd reblogged this from wwnorton
  7. marynelson8 reblogged this from wwnorton
  8. dieudonne reblogged this from nagging
  9. reachthrough reblogged this from wwnorton
  10. u-m-b-r-a reblogged this from kaylaskye23
  11. agreatsocialsuccess reblogged this from wwnorton
  12. tweedarms reblogged this from poetbabble
  13. aestheticdalliance reblogged this from wwnorton
  14. bluesand reblogged this from wwnorton
  15. to-much-to-remember reblogged this from ineffa-ble
  16. poetrymidwest reblogged this from poetbabble
  17. ineffa-ble reblogged this from wwnorton
  18. britb198 reblogged this from wwnorton
  19. incidere reblogged this from viltis
  20. viltis reblogged this from clameur
  21. ineffa-ble reblogged this from wwnorton
  22. clameur reblogged this from wwnorton
  23. bodyofwatersotall reblogged this from wwnorton
  24. toastedalmondeyes reblogged this from wwnorton