Quote

The ear writes my poems, not the mind.

Stanley Kunitz

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Stanley Kunitz
Age: 100 †
Born: 1905
Born: July 29
Died: 2006
Died: May 14
Linguist
Poet
Translator
Writer
Worcester
Massachusetts
Stanley Jasspon Kunitz
Mind
Writes
Poems
Ears
Writing

More quotes by Stanley Kunitz

Image
Deftly they opened the brain of a child, and it was full of flying dreams.
Stanley Kunitz
Image
Memory is each man's poet-in-residence.
Stanley Kunitz
Image
A longing for the dance stirs in the buried life.
Stanley Kunitz
Image
We have all been expelled from the Garden, but the ones who suffer most in exile are those who are still permitted to dream of perfection.
Stanley Kunitz
Image
...few young poets [are] testing their poems against the ear. They're writing for the page, and the page, let me tell you, is a cold bed.
Stanley Kunitz
Image
Poetry today is easier to write but harder to remember.
Stanley Kunitz
Image
A poet needs to keep his wilderness alive inside him. To remain a poet after forty requires an awareness of your darkest Africa, that part of yourself that will never be tamed.
Stanley Kunitz
Image
In every house of marriage there's room for an interpreter.
Stanley Kunitz
Image
An old poet ought never to be caught with his technique showing.
Stanley Kunitz
Image
To conquer a piece of earth and make it as beautiful as one can dream of it being: That is art, too. A man cannot be separated from the earth. I come out of the garden every day feeling, oh, inspired in a way that one needs in order to convert the daily-ness of the life into something greater than that little life itself.
Stanley Kunitz
Image
I want to write poems that are natural, luminous, deep, spare. I dream of an art so transparent that you can look through and see the world.
Stanley Kunitz
Image
Darling, do you remember the man you married? Touch me, remind me who I am.
Stanley Kunitz
Image
A poem has secrets that the poet knows nothing of.
Stanley Kunitz
Image
How shall the heart be reconciled / To its feast of losses?
Stanley Kunitz
Image
Live in the layers, not on the litter.
Stanley Kunitz
Image
It is my heart that's late, it is my song that's flown.
Stanley Kunitz
Image
Some poems present themselves as cliffs that need to be climbed. Others are so defensive that when you approach their enclosure you half expect to be met by a snarling dog at the gate. Still others want to smother you with their sticky charms.
Stanley Kunitz
Image
Poetry is the enemy of the poem.
Stanley Kunitz
Image
I can hardly wait for tomorrow, it means a new life for me each and every day.
Stanley Kunitz
Image
In my darkest night, when the moon was covered and I roamed through wreckage, a nimbus-clouded voice directed me: Live in the layers, not on the litter. Though I lack the art to decipher it, no doubt the next chapter in my book of transformations is already written. I am not done with my changes.
Stanley Kunitz