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Inspiration is inbreathing, indwelling, poetry can never be entirely willed. It may be true a poet is given only a single line but that line is a gift from the unconscious, intution , a perception.

— Edward Hirsch How to Read a Poem And Fall in Love with Poetry (1998)

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More quotes by Edward Hirsch

The line is a way of thinking in poetry, by poetry..it paces the poem.

The poem is an act beyond paraphrase because what is being said is always inseparable from the way it is being said.

How to Read a Poem And Fall in Love with Poetry (1998)

The poem is an original and unique creation, but it is reading and recitation: participation.

How to Read a Poem And Fall in Love with Poetry (1998)

I was never able to pray
but let me inscribe my name
in the book of waves.

Poetry is a voicing, a calling forth, words waiting to be vocalized.

How to Read a Poem And Fall in Love with Poetry (1998)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Edward Hirsch (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.