Skip to content

The poet creates it; the people by recitation recreate it. Poet and reader (hearer) are moments of the same reality.

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

Another quote →

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)

All Edward Hirsch quotes →

Attribution

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.