Stephen Dunn Quotes

That is to say, epic poetry has been invented many times and independently; but, as the needs which prompted the invention have been broadly similar, so the invention itself has been.

Language as a communication tool is the primary element from which literature is created. Even in pre-literate societies, it exists as songs, riddles, or epics that are chanted.

I am definitely a storyteller, but probably not a traditional Storyteller.

We are the only animal that tells stories.

In general, the Arab world is an artistic hub that has such a variety, whether it be music, film, poetry.

Literature is love. I think it went like this: drawings in the cave, sounds in the cave, songs in the cave, songs about us. Later, stories about us.

Poetry connects us to what is deepest in ourselves. It gives us access to our own feelings, which are often shadowy, and engages us in the art of making meaning. It widens the space of our inner lives. It is a magical, mysterious, inexplicable (though not incomprehensible) event in language.

For me, poetry is an evasion of the real job of writing prose.

I get some flak for and some resistance from colleagues for because I'm interested in storytelling. I mean what I like about songwriting is songs used to tell a story.

Mia Maz glanced aside in concern at his muffled snort. "Are you all right?" "Yes. Sorry," he whispered. "I'm just having an attack of limericks." Her eyes widened, and she bit her lip; only her deepening dimple betrayed her. "Shhh," she said, with feeling.

The poem is in my hands, and can run stories through her hands.

poetry has been able to function quite directly as human interpretation of the raw, loose universe. It is a mixture, if you will, of journalism and metaphysics, or of science and religion.

It's not about facts, it's about feelings. It's about remembering feelings and happiness. A definition of art is that it makes concrete our most subtle emotions. I think the highest form of art is music. It's the most abstract of all art expression.

The necessity of poetry has to be stated over and over, but only to those who have reason to fear its power, or those who still believe that language is 'only words' and that an old language is good enough for our descriptions of the world we are trying to transform.

What is poetry? The suggestion, by the imagination, of noble grounds for the noble emotions.

All I try to do is portray Indians as we are, in creative ways. With imagination and poetry. I think a lot of Native American literature is stuck in one idea: sort of spiritual, environmentalist Indians. And I want to portray everyday lives. I think by doing that, by portraying the ordinary lives of Indians, perhaps people learn something new.

I do not think [poetry] is more, or less, necessary than food, shelter, health, education, decent working conditions. It is as necessary.

Poetry offers a way of understanding and expressing existence that is fundamentally different from conceptual thought.

Poetry, with all its obscurity, has a more general as well as a more powerful dominion over the passions than the art of painting.

A novel is an impression, not an argument; and there the matter must rest.

Facts interest me less than the trailing smoke of stories.

Poetry expands the senses and keeps them in prime condition. It keeps you aware of your nose, your eye, your ear, your tongue, your hand.

The painter makes real to others his innermost feelings about all that he cares for. A secret becomes known to everyone who views the picture through the intensity with which it is felt.

Poetry will absorb and transmute, as it always has done, and glorify, all that we can know.

I don't ask my students to have studied film or any education in general. What I ask them is to come and sit and tell me a story, and the way they choose it and tell it, for me, the best criteria for whether they are right for making films. There's nothing more important than being able to tell your story orally.