Everything I Need To Know I Learned From Hemingway

EVERYTHING I NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED FROM HEMINGWAY “Man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated” These words from Papa Hank are true as can be And so to myself must often be repeated. No man ever spoke truer words, to my heart My life lived by what his yet represents Should I wish to meddle in the affairs of others; “All things truly wicked start from an innocence.” “The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.” Reminds me that caring and loving mean taking the step first. There is no crime in being proved wrong But judging rightly is the heart’s boon reimbursed. Of his prose – books have been written, enough has been said, While most of the world forgets his gift of verse sublime His maxim I’ve taken as my own – “All my life I’ve looked at words As though I were seeing them for the first time.” The parley between author and reader akin To carefully negotiated transaction But engagement is primary, exposition a crime, “Never mistake motion for action.” “I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.” Oh, but I do, I stilled my wild soul, held my breathe until cold As my writer’s heart listens to you. “The world breaks everyone, and afterward, Some are strong at the broken places.” So I feel his strength in the frame of my life As his philosophy my poet’s pen embraces And there is my affinity, my ties to the quick To the heart, soul and wit of the man For “A writer’s job is not to judge, But to seek to understand.”