Showing posts with label Quote. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Quote. Show all posts
Friday, August 26, 2011
On learning & perfection
We come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly. ~Angelina Jolie
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Learning to live
People need to be made more aware of the need to work at learning how to live because life is so quick and sometimes it goes away too quickly. ~ Andy Warhol
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Opening Up~
And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
~ Anais Nin
It seems to me that Nin's words above, like so many of her bits of wisdom are in fact powerful maxiums we can all lean on in life. Everyone... but they seem so relevent to the writer's life - a life that often challenges one to risk opening the blossoms that reveal
Do you recall a time when your writing risked blossoming?
Wednesday, August 03, 2011
Perfect Understanding Vs. Pleasure
A. E. Housman
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Going to Poetry the Bigger Picture
The other day I posted a quotation that I came across via a tweet by Terresa that struck me profoundly. The quote I posted here on Thursday. I posed the question - why do you go to poetry and so far there has been not a soul come forward to share their response. But the quote is worthy of more then just a retweet or reposting. It is worthy because it opens up my mind to larger questions. So to start with... here is the quote again:
"The reason we go to poetry is not for wisdom, but for the dismantling of wisdom." - Jacques Lacan
Over the years there have been any number of essayists that have tackled questions about to what degree if any that poetry can make a difference in one's life. I don't imagine what I am going to say is groundbreaking, but the degree to which one approaches the reading of poetry I believe can inform one's perspective on some of the more philosophical questions involving life today.
Take the business world... Author Tom Ehrenfield writes, "entrepreneurs, like poets, invent new ways to connect people, ideas, and organizations." It is the inventiveness, the creative approach to things that is perhaps the most important things man has going for him.
Today's economic issues could use some inventiveness. When certain people believe that the current debt crisis can be simply approached by not increasing the debt ceiling and to cut spending and then think others "stupid" because they cannot see what is so simple to them they fail because the problem is more complex then that and their solution ignores so many factors. These people are probably the first to run from a poem holding hands over their ears chanting loudly I don't want to hear it, don't read it. Considering the many factors in such an issue requires more thought commitment then they are willing to out into the equation.
As a people we have achieved much over the history of man by reason of our creativity. Our willingness to look at things differently then that first one dimensional approach.
Without stretching our mind, penicillin is never discovered. The Wright brothers are grounded indefinitely. There is no moon landing. Cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's will never be cured.
I have read that more and more Fortune 500 companies a looking for qualified employees that have experience/interest in poetry and literature. It's not because they, the CEO's are looking for someone with such interests to chew the fat with over lunch, but because such people are adept at creating solutions to problems and not just adding 2+2 to equal 4.
So when someone asks you if poetry really matters... if it can save you, the long answer may just be yes!
I submit that the solution to our many environmental challenges, finding cures for many incurable illnesses, solving our economic woes, feeding the world hungry, and living a peaceful coexistence with people people from different cultures around the world all involve the poetics of creativity. Personal enjoyment aside (which I consider one very good reason to go to poetry) its model may very well our very salvation as a people.
"The reason we go to poetry is not for wisdom, but for the dismantling of wisdom." - Jacques Lacan
Over the years there have been any number of essayists that have tackled questions about to what degree if any that poetry can make a difference in one's life. I don't imagine what I am going to say is groundbreaking, but the degree to which one approaches the reading of poetry I believe can inform one's perspective on some of the more philosophical questions involving life today.
Take the business world... Author Tom Ehrenfield writes, "entrepreneurs, like poets, invent new ways to connect people, ideas, and organizations." It is the inventiveness, the creative approach to things that is perhaps the most important things man has going for him.
Today's economic issues could use some inventiveness. When certain people believe that the current debt crisis can be simply approached by not increasing the debt ceiling and to cut spending and then think others "stupid" because they cannot see what is so simple to them they fail because the problem is more complex then that and their solution ignores so many factors. These people are probably the first to run from a poem holding hands over their ears chanting loudly I don't want to hear it, don't read it. Considering the many factors in such an issue requires more thought commitment then they are willing to out into the equation.
As a people we have achieved much over the history of man by reason of our creativity. Our willingness to look at things differently then that first one dimensional approach.
Without stretching our mind, penicillin is never discovered. The Wright brothers are grounded indefinitely. There is no moon landing. Cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's will never be cured.
I have read that more and more Fortune 500 companies a looking for qualified employees that have experience/interest in poetry and literature. It's not because they, the CEO's are looking for someone with such interests to chew the fat with over lunch, but because such people are adept at creating solutions to problems and not just adding 2+2 to equal 4.
So when someone asks you if poetry really matters... if it can save you, the long answer may just be yes!
I submit that the solution to our many environmental challenges, finding cures for many incurable illnesses, solving our economic woes, feeding the world hungry, and living a peaceful coexistence with people people from different cultures around the world all involve the poetics of creativity. Personal enjoyment aside (which I consider one very good reason to go to poetry) its model may very well our very salvation as a people.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Why we go to poetry
"The reason we go to poetry is not for wisdom, but for the dismantiling of wisdom." - Jacques Lacan
Thanks to Terresa who lead me to the quote!
Why do you Go to poetry?
Thanks to Terresa who lead me to the quote!
Why do you Go to poetry?
Monday, June 20, 2011
Saturday, June 04, 2011
Influence
The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt. ~ Frederick Buechner
Reading Frederick Buechner's words above struck me tonight in many different ways. While Buechner may well have been thinking more in terms of the example our life leaves for others, I was also thinking about how far our influence goes in other areas such as art. Our own tastes in art. Our own creations in art. The influence of one's creativity on others. Really any influence we have on others can ultimately travel far. When we write a poem - paint a picture or create a song don't we really hope that it touches someone else? The more someones the better.
Reading Frederick Buechner's words above struck me tonight in many different ways. While Buechner may well have been thinking more in terms of the example our life leaves for others, I was also thinking about how far our influence goes in other areas such as art. Our own tastes in art. Our own creations in art. The influence of one's creativity on others. Really any influence we have on others can ultimately travel far. When we write a poem - paint a picture or create a song don't we really hope that it touches someone else? The more someones the better.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Capturing that Childlike Wonder
"It would not hurt that we live our lives with childlike wonder. Have you asked yourself lately: "When was the last time I saw something for the first time?" ~ Cecilia Borromeo
Saturday, May 28, 2011
An Editor's View
We sometimes received - and I would read - 200 manuscripts a week. Some of them were wonderful, some were terrible; most were mediocre. It was like the gifts of the good and bad fairies. ~ Marilyn Hacker
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Under The Influence...
There is a boundary to men's passions when they act from feelings; but none when they are under the influence of imagination. ~ Edmund Burke
I'm thinking I need to write more often under the influence...
I'm thinking I need to write more often under the influence...
Friday, May 13, 2011
Poetry Out Loud and With Distance
A strange alchemy happens when the poem is read aloud that allows the writer to perceive it more purely, with more distance. ~ Beth Ann Fennelly
Sunday, April 24, 2011
I give you the images I know...
“I cannot promise very much.
I give you the images I know.
Lie still with me and watch.
We laugh and we touch.
I promise you love. Time will not take that away.”
~Anne Sexton
The images I know tonight...
- A sofa of zig-zagged pillows.
- An asphalt road that curves right - forever.
- A bird nest driven into a tree by tornadic winds.
- The river running rampant outside its banks.
- A starless sky adrift upon ceiling.
- Tired brown eyes - like no other,
Friday, April 22, 2011
Cats & Writers
A catless writer is almost inconceivable. It's a perverse taste, really, since it would be easier to write with a herd of buffalo in the room than even one cat; they make nests in the notes and bite the end of the pen and walk on the typewriter keys. ~Barbara Holland
Photo: Evie - whiteboard
Photo: Evie - whiteboard
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Thursday Thought - Charles Simic
"Here in the United States, we speak with reverence of authentic experience. We write poems about our daddies taking us fishing and breaking our hearts by making us throw the little fish back into the river. We even tell the reader the kind of car we were driving, the year and the model, to give the impression that it’s all true. It’s because we think of ourselves as journalists of a kind. Like them, we’ll go anywhere for a story. Don’t believe a word of it. As any poet can tell you, one often sees better with eyes closed than with eyes wide open." — Charles Simic
In the darkness of my mind
it's cobwebbed cold
strings flap in the current
that blows grease are frozen
in flight and still against the hope
that dawn brings a thaw
and wisps of interest that is lacking
as the stars are silent
© 2011 - Michael A. Wells
Closing your eyes... what do you see?
In the darkness of my mind
it's cobwebbed cold
strings flap in the current
that blows grease are frozen
in flight and still against the hope
that dawn brings a thaw
and wisps of interest that is lacking
as the stars are silent
© 2011 - Michael A. Wells
Closing your eyes... what do you see?
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
A poem showcases itself
A poem is true if it hangs together. Information points to something else. A poem points to nothing but itself. - E. M. Forster
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
A Tolstoy Moment
One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between Man and Nature
shall not be broken. ~ Leo Tolstoy
Sunday, March 27, 2011
On Spring
Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night. ~Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke
Thursday, March 24, 2011
A Tolstoy Moment
Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.
~ Leo Tolstoy
Friday, March 18, 2011
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