Ars Poetica Quotes

For the poet, the world is word. Words. Not that precisely. Precisely: the world and words fuck each other.

The aim of the poet is to inform or delight, or to combine together, in what he says, both pleasure and applicability to life. In instructing, be brief in what you say in order that your readers may grasp it quickly and retain it faithfully. Superfluous words simply spill out when the mind is already full. Fiction invented in order to please should remain close to reality.

Ars Poetica A poem should be palpable and mute As a globed fruit, Dumb As old medallions to the thumb, Silent as the sleeve-worn stone Of casement ledges where the moss has grown— A poem should be wordless As the flight of birds. A poem should be motionless in time As the moon climbs, Leaving, as the moon releases Twig by twig the night-entangled trees, Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves, Memory by memory the mind— A poem should be motionless in time As the moon climbs. A poem should be equal to: Not true. For all the history of grief An empty doorway and a maple leaf. For love The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea— A poem should not mean But be.

It is not enough for poems to be beautiful; they must be affecting, and must lead the heart of the hearer as they will.

He who combines the useful and the pleasing wins out by both instructing and delighting the reader. That is the sort of book that will make money for the publisher, cross the seas, and extend the fame of the author.

For Poesy alone can tell her dreams, With the fine spell of words alone can save Imagination from the sable charm And dumb enchantment. Who alive can say, ‘Thou art no Poet may’st not tell thy dreams?’ Since every man whose soul is not a clod Hath visions, and would speak, if he had loved And been well nurtured in his mother tongue. Whether the dream now purpos’d to rehearse Be poet’s or fanatic’s will be known When this warm scribe my hand is in the grave.

Ars Poetica I taught my words to love, I showed them my heart and would not give up until their syllables did not start to beat. I showed them trees and what words wouldn't rustle I hanged, without pity, from the branches. In the end, words needed to resemble both me and the world. Then I came to me, I braced myself between two banks of a river, to present a bridge, a bridge between a bull's horn and grass, between black stars of light and earth, between the temple of a woman's head and a man's, letting words travel over me like racing cars, electric trains, only so they could cross faster, only so they would learn to transport the world, from itself, to itself.

Ars Poetica II" I find, after all these years, I am a believer— I believe what the thunder and lightning have to say; I believe that dreams are real, and that death has two reprisals; I believe that dead leaves and black water fill my heart. I shall die like a cloud, beautiful, white, full of nothingness. The night sky is an ideogram, a code card punched with holes. It thinks it’s the word of what’s-to-come. It thinks this, but it’s only The Library of Last Resort, The reflected light of The Great Misunderstanding. God is the fire my feet are held to.

Ars Poetica" If you dissect the poem, this is what you will find: a handful of broken glass, salt bedding routes into our cheeks. If you crack an egg, something spills. The rabbit is limp & yet, the moon continues to glow. The rabbit is limp & yet, here I am, mouth stupid and dry. Palm of river & yellow yolk. Skin deep as plums, tender & smooth. A cartographer composed entirely of incidental histories. Thin slices of lemon. Pink belly & dive. When we must, we learn what we are capable of.

A poet […] may talk nonsense, but it will probably be interesting nonsense.

I have nothing but a book, Nothing but that to prove your blood and mine.

Ce n'était ni le Diable ni le bon Dieu, c'était Arthur Rimbaud, c'est-à-dire un très grand poète.

Ars Poetica To gaze at the river made of time and water And recall that time itself is another river, To know we cease to be, just like the river, And that our faces pass away, just like the water. To feel that waking is another sleep That dreams it does not sleep and that death, Which our flesh dreads, is that very death Of every night, which we call sleep. To see in the day or in the year a symbol Of mankind's days and of his years, To transform the outrage of the years Into a music, a rumor and a symbol, To see in death a sleep, and in the sunset A sad gold, of such is Poetry Immortal and a pauper. For Poetry Returns like the dawn and the sunset. At times in the afternoons a face Looks at us from the depths of a mirror; Art must be like that mirror That reveals to us this face of ours.

Now What?" Kerensky said. "We wait," Dahl said. "For how long?" Kerensky said, " As long as dramatically appropriate," Dahl said.

Whatever else it may or may not be, I want every poem I write to be a hymn in praise of the English language.

My name on the title-page seems a pseudonym for someone else, someone talented but near the border of sanity...

I cast my heart into my rhymes, That you, in the dim coming times, May know how my heart went with them

My voice goes after what my eyes cannot reach, With the twirl of my tongue I encompass worlds and volumes of worlds.

Listen! I will be honest with you, I do not offer the old smooth prizes, but offer rough new prizes

The strongest and sweetest songs yet remain to be sung.

Fundamental and flagrant contradictions rarely occur in second-rate writers; in the work of the great authors, they lead into the very center of their work.

Perhaps you know how to draw a cypress tree: so what, if you've been given money to paint a sailor plunging from a shipwreck in despair?

Ars Poetica To look at the river made of time and water And remember that time is another river, To know that we are lost like the river And that faces dissolve like water. To be aware that waking dreams it is not asleep While it is another dream, and that the death That our flesh goes in fear of is that death Which comes every night and is called sleep. To see in the day or in the year a symbol Of the days of man and of his years, To transmute the outrage of the years Into a music, a murmur of voices, and a symbol, To see in death sleep, and in the sunset A sad gold—such is poetry, Which is immortal and poor. Poetry returns like the dawn and the sunset. At times in the evenings a face Looks at us out of the depths of a mirror; Art should be like that mirror Which reveals to us our own face. They say that Ulysses, sated with marvels, Wept tears of love at the sight of his Ithaca, Green and humble. Art is that Ithaca Of green eternity, not of marvels. It is also like the river with no end That flows and remains and is the mirror of one same Inconstant Heraclitus, who is the same And is another, like the river with no end.

Conversation is the vehicle for change. We test our ideas. We hear our own voice in a concert with another. And inside those pauses of listening, we approach new territories of thought. A good argument, call it a discussion, frees us. Words fly out of our mouths like threatened birds. Once released, they may never return. If they do, they have chosen home and the bird-worms are calmed into an ars poetica.

Life is fleeting and full of sorrow and no words can prevent the brave and the beautiful from dying or annihilate a grief. What poetry can do is transform the real world into an imaginary one which is godlike in its permanence and beauty, providing a picture of life which is worthy of imitation as far as it is possible.

...an actualized poem requires the actualization, or radical transformation, of the poet - that a poem is the discovery and enactment of an emotional and psychological investigation into the vexed interiority of a speaker, that the interior is indeed political - and that every poem, every time, in some miraculous way, must be an argument about the making of poetry itself.

Paradoxul realismului socialist: "Pe de o parte, mergand pana la capat cu reflectarea stiintifica si obiectiva a realitatii, asa cum pretinde cultura stalinista ca face, ar iesi la suprafata multe "imperfectiuni" ale sistemului. De cealalta parte, o poetica non-mimetica ar rata, prin aspectul sau abstract, functia agitatorica a noii arte". (Alex Goldis, Critica in transee)

Like many things that are claimed as Western inventions, grammar was first practiced in the East. According to scholars, there is a rich tradition of grammatical typology in Sanskrit that dates back to at least the sixth century B.C. and probably the eighth century B.C. *3 I had that teacher, and that comment still chaps my hide. *4 Modern linguistic relativism goes back at least two thousand years: “Multa renascentur quae iam cecidere, cadentque / quae nunc sunt in honore vocabula, si volet usus, / quem penes arbitrium est et ius et norma loquendi.” (Many words shall revive, which now have fallen off; / and many which are now in esteem shall fall off, if it be the will of usage, / in whose power is the decision and right and standard of language.) Horace, Ars Poetica, A.D. 18. What a commie hippie liberal.

Whatever may have been the case in years gone by, the true use for the imaginative faculty of modern times is to give ultimate vivification to facts, to science, and to common lives, endowing them with the glows and glories and final illustriousness which belong to every real thing, and to real things only. Without that ultimate vivification—which the poet or other artist alone can give—reality would seem incomplete, and science, democracy, and life itself, finally in vain.

Saepe stilum vertas, iterum quae digna legi sint scripturus, neque te ut miretur turba labores. Ktheje penen shpesh, kur te duash gjera te denja te shkruash per t'u lexuar perseri, braktise turmen!

Semis. An haec animos aerugo et cura peculi Quum semel imbuerit, speramus carmina fingi Posse, lindenda cedro et levi servanda cupresso? "Nje gjysme". Ja, kur kjo lakmi dhe kujdes i tepruar ndaj prones, i ka zhveshur shpirtrat, a thua ka shprese se mund te kendohen kenget, qe duhen lyer me vajin e cedrit e duhen ruajtur ne arken e qiparisit?

Sunt delicta tamen, quibus ignovisse velumis. Nam neque chorda sonum reddit, quem vult manus et mens, Poscentique gravem persaepe remittit acutum; Nec semper feriet, quodcumque minabitur, arcus. Verum, ubi plura nitent in carmine, non ego paucis Offendar maculis, quas aut incuria fudit, Aut humana parum cavit natura. Quid ergo est? Ut scriptor si peccat idem librarius usque, Quamvis est monitus, venia caret, et citharoedus Ridetur, chorda qui semper oberrat eadem. Ekzistojne dhe gabimet qe gjithsesi duhen falur; ngase as dora dhe mendja s'e jep perhere tingullin e deshiruar, dhe atij qe kerkon zerin e trashe, ia jep te hollin, e as harku s'e qellon perhere cakun e vendosur pezull. Vertete, kur ne poezine shkelqejne shume gjera, mua s'me pengojne njollat e pakta; ato shfaqen nga pakujdesia o nga natyra njerezore. Prandaj cfare duhet bere? Kur si shkrimtari gabon edhe pershkruesi dhe pas verejtjes se thene s'kerkon falje fare, ashtu dhe kitaristi do te perqeshet, kur te njejtit tel i bie gabimisht.

Ut pictura, poesis: erit, quae, si propius stes, Te capiat magis, et quaedam, si longius abstes: Haec amat obscurum: volet haec sub luce videri, Iudicis argutum quae non formidat acumen: Haec placuit semel, haec decies repetita placebit. Poezia i perngjet piktures: njera te terheq me teper nga afer, kurse tjetra prej se largu; kjo e do erresiren, ajo do te shikohet ne drite, sepse aspak nuk frikesohet nga shikimi i kritikut, njera do te pelqehet nje here, kurse tjetra ne vijim dhjete here.

Koken e njeriut sikur mbi qafe t'ia ngjiste kalit piktori dhe gjymtyreve te mbledhura gjithandej t'ua shartonte puplat e larme asisoj qe gruaja lart mbi bel, fort e bukur, te shnderrohej ne nje peshk te shemtuar e te perhime, ju te ftuar per te pare, o miq te mi, a do te permbaheni se qeshuri? Me besoni, o Pizone, se krejt i ngjashem do te ishte ne pamje edhe libri, kur si ne jermim te te semurit, te perfytyroheshin figurat fantastike, qe as koka, as kemba asnje trupi s'do ti pergjigjeshin. "Piktoret, ashtu edhe poetet, kane pasur te njejten mundesi qe me guxim te krijonin cdo gje.

Far as we aim our signs to reach, Far as we often make them reach, Across the soul-from-soul abyss, There is an aeon-limit set Beyond which they are doomed to miss. Two souls may be too widely met. That sad-with-distance river beach With mortal longing may beseech; It cannot speak as far as this.

Biografi tubuh inilah yang terasa dalam 40 sajak di kumpulan puisi Pandora ini. Lihatlah bagaimana ia mengurutkan sajak-sajak di buku ini. Dari mulai Ulat, Kepompong, Kupu-kupu, 1967, dan sajak-sajak yang mengeksplorasi tema anak (Embrio, Schipol, Pasha, Den Haag), hingga Rahib dan Jejak. Deretan sajak itu tampak seperti sebuah metamorfosis tubuh. Tubuh, di tangan penyair kelahiran ini, keluar dan bahkan meloncat dari bentuk estetiknya. Ia memperlakukan tubuh bagai sebuah menu santapan (Di meja makan kusantap tubuhku, kuteguk air mataku—sajak “Kepompong”). Inilah ketangkasan seorang Oka. Ia menulis, memendam Bali, mencangkul masa lalu, membenturkan tradisi, meringkus pengalaman hidup, dan dengan tanpa sungkan menggasak tubuhnya sendiri demi memperoleh sebuah ars poetica. Inilah “sayap kuat” sajak-sajak Oka, penulis yang menurut saya, menjadi salah satu wakil terpenting penyair Indonesia mutakhir. (Yos Rizal Suriaji- “Sebuah Menu Bernama Tubuh”-2008)

not enough space in a poem to read all the names of the dead

CONVERSATION is the vehicle for change. We test our ideas. We hear our own voice in concert with another. And inside those pauses of listening, we approach new territories of thought. A good argument, call it a discussion, frees us. Words fly out of our mouths like threatened birds. Once released, they may never return. If they do, they have chosen a home and the bird-words are calmed into an ars poetica.

VERSO 33.2 What part of this are you letting go, the clerk asks, because it seems to me none of this belongs on the dock with me. The clerk is being clerical, she doesn't want to handle every passing stray thought of the author, let alone every feeling. Every feeling need not be considered, else there would be no room left in the world. No room. The author finds it hard to rise in the mornings, whatever she is carrying lies as a boulder on her forehead when she opens her eyes, though it is invisible to anyone else. The clerk thinks it is mere self-indulgence. The author agrees. But what do you do with a feeling like that? It is certainly an embarrassment, to look at a recumbent discarded mattress and feel homesick, or as if one had lost some great love.

before I knew you I kept a sparrow in a shoebox, I fed it ham and held it to my head to hear it sing, I called it a radio, it kept the blues away, I called it love and wrote down all the words, — Kevin Prufer, from “Ars Poetica,” Kenyon Review (vol. 36, no. 1, Winter 2014)

The sky over the wharf is a sometime-ish sky, it changes with the moods and anxieties of the clerk, it is ink blue as her coat or grey as sea or pink as evening clouds. It is cobalt as good luck or manganite as trouble.