Poetic Liberation Quotes

Poetry is the gate through which I enter the land of enchantment. Once inside the flaming wall, my limitations fall from me, and my spirit is free.

Poetry is a break for freedom.

Follow, poet, follow right To the bottom of the night, With your unconstraining voice Still persuade us to rejoice; With the farming of a verse Make a vineyard of the curse, Sing of human unsuccess In a rapture of distress; In the deserts of the heart Let the healing fountain start, In the prison of his days Teach the free man how to praise.

What I responded to, on the page, was the way a poem could liberate, by means of a word's setting, through subtleties of timing, of pacing, that word's full and surprising range of meaning. It seemed to me that simple language best suited this enterprise.

Poetry helps my soul escape its encasement.

For poetry exists to break through to below the level of reason where the angels and monsters that the amenities keep in the cellar may come out to dance, to rove and roar, growling and singing, to bring life back to the enclosed rooms where too often we are only 'living and partly living.

You have to really dive deep back into yourself and get rid of so much modern analytical categorization. It's one of the great things poetry does.

But there is some way in which poets believe that and this is dangerous, too believe that their calling gives them a certain freedom. A certain freedom to live in a free way.

What is it precisely, that feeling of 'returning' from a poem? Something is lighter, softer, larger - then it fades, but never completely.

I think that I have less conviction than ever that poetry matters - that poetry changes or saves anything or anyone. But, in fact, that's tremendously freeing. If it doesn't matter much, the stakes are lower and you can't really fail. It's insurrection. It's a tiny alphabet revolution. A secret. A psalm.