T.: The Truth

Friday, March 8, 2013

The Truth

Taking some liberties here posting a facebook post from a friend (actually, a friend of a friend, someone I've never met in the flesh!)

"I just heard Gretel Ehrlich quote an old friend: 'A poem is an emergency of the spirit.' She was discussing her new new book about the Tsunami in Japan. On hearing those words, I could barely breathe." --John Swinburn

Splendid stuff!

Lots of emergencies of the spirit this week 'round here, lots of poetry too.

2 comments:

JSMarch 8, 2013 at 6:54 PM
I just added your blog to my list of "must reads." And that was before the flattery of your post!
ReplyDelete
Replies
TaradharmaMarch 9, 2013 at 7:37 AM
I love that description of writing poems...it often feels as if it is a compulsion, driven from without, or from deep deep within.
ReplyDelete
Replies

Add comment

"What is the meaning of life? That was all — a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years. The great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark. . . . "
—Virginia Woolf, To The Lighthouse

"Like other poets, I am often asked if I have a spiritual practice. Yes, writing is my spiritual practice."
— Alicia Ostriker

"The trick, Gloria thought as she experienced near-whiplash at the revelation, was to keep the level of believing in magic constant."
—Marylinn Kelly

"Everywhere I go I find a poet has been there before me."
—Sigmund Freud

"...and following the wrong god home we may miss our star."
—William Stafford

"I am in love with the world.""
—Maurice Sendak

“I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world.”
—Rainier Maria Rilke

"Writing means revealing oneself to excess." --Franz Kafka

"There isn't enough of anything
as long as we live. But at intervals
a sweetness appears and, given a chance
prevails. "
--Raymond Carver

"Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift. "
--Mary Oliver

"In the middle of the journey of our life
I found myself in a dark wood,
For I had lost the right path.
And so we came forth,
and once again beheld the stars."
--Dante Alighieri