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I mean, in the history of poetry there have been a lot poetries where you have to inherit the position of poet from your ancestors and I think that if you just leave anyone to become a poet based on an aristocratic society, then a lot of people are left out who might have something to offer.

Edward Hirsch

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Edward Hirsch
Age: 74
Born: 1950
Born: January 20
Poet
Chicago
Illinois
Mean
Leave
Inherit
Something
Position
Ancestors
Think
Anyone
Ancestor
Thinking
Society
Offer
People
History
Offers
Left
Based
Become
Poet
Might
Poetry
Aristocratic

More quotes by Edward Hirsch

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Civil religion gives American culture its direction and defines its fundamental values, but it does not determine the diversified contents of American national culture.
Edward Hirsch
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You're alone with yourself and your own feelings and that gives you deeper access to what you need to get in touch with to write poetry.
Edward Hirsch
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I was surprised recently to find a book called Poetry in Persons that's coming out about visit to poets to a class that Pearl London gave.
Edward Hirsch
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So, it's a continual process of trial and error and then I find things and I throw it out and start again, but I keep writing it over again.
Edward Hirsch
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I didn't sit down then and start writing poems, but it was in the back of my mind.
Edward Hirsch
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In American tradition a certain kind of, I would say, desperate American friendliness in which the poet tries to reach out through the page to make a connection by the side of the road with some other person.
Edward Hirsch
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And every year there is a brief, startling moment When we pause in the middle of a long walk home and Suddenly feel something invisible and weightless Touching our shoulders, sweeping down from the air: It is the autumn wind pressing against our bodies It is the changing light of fall falling on us.
Edward Hirsch
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Sometimes the title comes to you at the beginning, sometimes it comes at the end. The very best way in my experience is when it comes in the middle.
Edward Hirsch
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A great model for this is the way that Dante calls on Virgil at the beginning of 'The Inferno,' 'The Divine Comedy,' to help guide him through the underworld.
Edward Hirsch
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Gertrude Stein said, I write for myself and strangers. I would say I write for myself, strangers and the great dead.
Edward Hirsch
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Reading poetry is an adventure in renewal, a creative act, a perpetual beginning, a rebirth of wonder.
Edward Hirsch
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A hook shot kisses the rim and hangs there, helplessly, but doesn't drop and for once our gangly starting center boxes out his man and times his jump perfectly, gathering the orange leather/from the air like a cherished possession.
Edward Hirsch
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That is many poets don't know how to tell a story and they don't have a sense of how to put things in order to tell a story and we thought the poets could learn from fiction writers something about developing a character over time who wasn't just you and also creating a narrative structure.
Edward Hirsch
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But, something has to be worked through formally as well as emotionally. Now, when those two things come together I've got something, I think, that I can be proud of.
Edward Hirsch
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Cafeteria-style education, combined with the unwillingness of our schools to place demands on students, has resulted in a steady diminishment of commonly shared information between generations and between young people themselves.
Edward Hirsch
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One of the deep fundamentals of poetry is the recurrence of sounds, syllables, words, phrases, lines, and stanzas. Repetition can be one of the most intoxicating features of poetry. It creates expectations, which can be fulfilled or frustrated. It can create a sense of boredom and complacency, but it can also incite enchantment and inspire bliss.
Edward Hirsch
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There has never been a great poet who wasn't also a great reader of poetry.
Edward Hirsch
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The very good thing about MFA programs is their democratizing. They bring a lot of different people to the table.
Edward Hirsch
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think what you hope for is that at different times of your life you're able to write the poetry that reflects the moment that you're in on your own journey.
Edward Hirsch
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Emily Dickinson calls previous poets her kinsmen of the shelf. You can always be consoled by your kinsmen of the shelf and you can participate in poetry by going to them and by trying to make something worthy of them.
Edward Hirsch