Jun 16, 2020
Robert Pinsky, from “In Defence of Allusion,” featured in London Review of Books (Vol. 25 No. 10, 22 May 2003)
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Robert Pinsky, from “In Defence of Allusion,” featured in London Review of Books (Vol. 25 No. 10, 22 May 2003)
I was driven because I wanted to be like others. I was afraid of what was wild and indecent in me.
Czesław Miłosz, from “Account”
Sometimes the ideas that mean the most to you will feel true long before you can quite formulate them or justify them.
Robert Pinksy, The Art of Poetry No. 76 in The Paris Review
After a while, I realized that for me the medium of poetry is the column of breath rising from the diaphragm to be shaped into meaning sounds inside the mouth. That is, poetry’s medium is the individual chest and throat and mouth of whoever undertakes to say the poem—a body, and not necessarily the body of the artist or an expert as in dance.
Robert Pinksy, The Art of Poetry No. 76 in The Paris Review
As a Tree
When I had no skin I made
A suit of gold,
Labeled it affirmation, it glowed
In awe of the body inside.
When I had no veins I turned
To shimmered soil, glittered
Into the earth,
Elbow deep in
The personal space of a redwood tree
I made its roots my veins.
Its knobs, my knuckles
Bark-throat catastrophe
When I had no hands
People hugged me.
When I had no roof I made Audacity my roof. When I had No supper my eyes dined. When I had no eyes I listened. When I had no ears I thought. When I had no thought I waited. When I had no father I made Care my father. When I had No mother I embraced order. When I had no friend I made Quiet my friend. When I had no Enemy I opposed my body. When I had no temple I made My voice my temple. I have No priest, my tongue is my choir. When I have no means fortune Is my means. When I have Nothing, death will be my fortune. Need is my tactic, detachment Is my strategy. When I had No lover I courted my sleep.
Robert Pinsky, "Samurai Song" from Jersey Rain. Copyright © 2000 by Robert Pinsky. Jersey Rain (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000)
Religion is nearly always a terrible thing.
From In Defense of Allusion by Robert Pinsky
"Poetry ... is an ancient art or technology: older than the computer, older than print, older than writing and indeed, though some may find this surprising, much older than prose. I presume that the technology of poetry, using the human body as its medium, evolved for specific uses; to hold things in memory, both within and beyond the individual life span; to achieve intensity and sensuous appeal; to express feelings and ideas rapidly and memorably. To share those feelings and ideas with companions, and also with the dead and with those to come after us." - Robert Pinsky
http://www.amazon.com/The-Sounds-Poetry-Brief-Guide/dp/0374526176