What I thought was an end turned out to be a middle. What I thought was a brick wall turned out to be a tunnel. What I thought was an injustice turned out to be a color of the sky.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the idea that perceived obstacles and endings can often lead to new beginnings and perspectives.
In this quote, Tony Hoagland explores the transformative nature of perception, revealing how life experiences that initially seem like finality or barriers can actually be gateways to new insights and opportunities. The imagery he uses—a middle instead of an end, a tunnel instead of a wall, and a color of the sky instead of an injustice—symbolizes the unexpected beauty and possibilities that can arise from our challenges, encouraging a shift in perspective.
In practice
Using this quote in a motivational speech to inspire resilience in the face of challenges.
So much of what I love about poetry lies in the vast possibilities of voice, the spectacular range of idiosyncratic flavors that can be embedded in a particular human voice reporting from the field. One beautiful axis of voice is the one that runs between vulnerability and detachment, between 'It hurts to be alive' and 'I can see a million miles from here.' A good poetic voice can do both at once.
When you're a student of poetry, you're lucky if you don't realize how untalented you are until you get a little better. Otherwise, you would just stop.
So why are we having to fight in 2012 against politicians who want to end access to birth control? It's like we woke up in a bad episode of 'Mad Men.'
I went West and took part in the strike of the machinists - the Southern Pacific Railroad, the corporation that swung California by its golden tail, that controlled its legislature, its farmers, its preachers, its workers.
If you think adventure is dangerous, try routine; it is lethal.
It's never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be.
Be not deceived. Revolutions do not go backward.
The external reality and inner dynamic of happenings in Northern Ireland between 1968 and 1974 were symptomatic of change, violent change admittedly, but change nevertheless, and for the minority living there, change had been long overdue.
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