Reading it aloud – poetry is, after all, just written down speech – allow the poem to have a moment to exist. The reader has to put as much care into the reading of the poem as the poet has into writing it. In the relationship between poet, poem and reader, every element has to pull its weight.
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(Poetry) It’s the place in language we are most human and we can see ourselves fully – far more than prose in fiction. A poem is able to hold so much in so little space. It’s a time capsule, a Tardis so much bigger on the inside than it seems on the outside.
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Poetry is in your everyday life, your memory, in what people say on the bus .. or just what's in your heart
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Every time a poet writes a poem it’s like it’s the first time. When you’ve finished a poem, you don’t know if you’ll ever write another one. Some poems arrive with a weight that’s more significant than other poems and you know it will take a lot of care to do it justice. Poetry, for so long now, has been the way I relate to everything. It’s like a companion. I can’t imagine ever being separated from it.
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The minute you decide to write a poem you are making artistic and technical decisions about rhyme and form and structure. Each one of those decisions pushes it away from the personal and makes it an artwork. If you were writing entirely personally, you would just write in that “Oh my god I’m so in love, I don’t know what to do with myself” voice. A poem moves away from you as you write it.
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I have piles of poetry books in the bathroom, on the stairs, everywhere. The only way to write poetry is to read it.
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You can teach form. You can teach students how to write a limerick and when those forms become recognisable to the students then they can start to imitate them. I always start with my favourite one: “There was a young man from Australia, who painted his arse like a dahlia, tuppence a smell, went down very well, but thruppence a lick was a failure.” That’s not even the rudest one I teach.
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They (Poems) come from lots of places: from personal experience; from memory. Things can be emotionally true even if they are not factually true. Not every poem has to be ‘from’ you even if it is ‘by’ you – other people’s voices come into my poetry.
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You can find poetry in your everyday life, your memory, in what people say on the bus, in the news, or just what's in your heart.
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Look at Seamus Heaney or Jo Shapcott – poets that have proved they can reach a huge readership by the quality of their poetry.
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(About her Mum) She was entrancing, fantastic at making up rhymes and stories. I think it was her Irish syntax and voice music that started my love of words.
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I always wanted a child. Being a mother is the central thing in my life. Having a child takes you back to all those parts of your own childhood that you had hidden away.
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The primary function of myth is to validate an existing social order. Myth enshrines conservative social values, raising tradition on a pedestal. It expresses and confirms, rather than explains or questions, the sources of cultural attitudes and values. Because myth anchors the present in the past it is a sociological charter for a future society which is an exact replica of the present one.
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I put together my first pamphlet when I was 16 - they were awful teenage stuff.
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This is a mark of success for Chief Stilwell as well as for the City of Jemison for its support of the advancement of law enforcement management principles.
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Being a good mother does not call for the same qualities as being a good housewife; a dedication to keeping children clean and tidy may override an interest in their separate development as individuals.
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I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework.
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Class has a sense of humor. It knows that a good laugh is the best lubricant for oiling the machinery of human relations. Class never makes excuses. It takes its lumps and learns from past mistakes. Class bespeaks an aristocracy unrelated to ancestors or money. Some extremely wealthy people have no class at all, while others who are struggling to make ends meet are loaded with it. Class is real. You can't fake it. Class never tries to build itself up by tearing others down. Class is already up and need not attempt to look better by making others look worse. Everyone is comfortable with the person who has class because he is comfortable with himself. If you have class, you've got it made. If you don't have class, no matter what else you have, it won't make up for it.
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Class is an aura of confidence that is being sure without being cocky. Class has nothing to do with money. Class never runs scared. It is self-discipline and self-knowledge. It's the sure footedness that comes with having proved you can meet life.
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The Lord gave us two ends -- one to sit on and the other to think with. Success depends on which one we use the most.
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These are not investments for the grandma and grandpa set,
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Always it gave me a pang that my children had no lawful claim to a name.
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Clearly, society has a tremendous stake in insisting on a woman's natural fitness for the career of mother: the alternatives are all too expensive.
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Men are the enemies of women. Promising sublime intimacy, unequalled passion, amazing security and grace, they nevertheless exploit and injure in a myriad subtle ways. Without men the world would be a better place: softer, kinder, more loving; calmer, quieter, more humane.
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Hire the best. Pay them fairly. Communicate frequently. Provide challenges and rewards. Believe in them. Get out of their way and they'll knock your socks off.
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Humans - who enslave, castrate, experiment on, and fillet other animals - have had an understandable penchant for pretending animals do not feel pain. A sharp distinction between humans and 'animals' is essential if we are to bend them to our will, make them work for us, wear them, eat them - without any disquieting tinges of guilt or regret. It is unseemly of us, who often behave so unfeelingly toward other animals, to contend that only humans can suffer. The behavior of other animals renders such pretensions specious. They are just too much like us.
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The poor wish to be rich, the rich wish to be happy, the single wish to be married, and the married wish to be dead.
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Nobody gets to live life backwards. Look ahead -- that's where your future lies.
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The real question is why are millions of people so unhappy, so bored, so unfulfilled, that they are willing to drink, snort, inject or inhale any substance that might blot out reality and give them a bit of temporary relief.
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All married couples should learn the art of battle as they should learn the art of making love. Good battle is objective and honest - never vicious or cruel. Good battle is healthy and constructive, and brings to a marriage the principles of equal partnership.
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