I can't tell you where a poem comes from, what it is, or what it is for: nor can any other man. The reason I can't tell you is that the purpose of a poem is to go past telling, to be recognised by burning.
A. R. AmmonsRead
Even if you walk exactly the same route each time - as with a sonnet - the events along the route cannot be imagined to be the same from day to day, as the poet's health, sight, his anticipations, moods, fears, thoughts cannot be the same.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Life is constantly changing, and even familiar experiences are never identical.
This quote by A. R. Ammons reflects on the nature of experience and perception, suggesting that even when we encounter the same situations or paths repeatedly, our internal states—such as our thoughts, emotions, and physical well-being—alter how we perceive each moment. It emphasizes the idea that every experience is unique, shaped by our ever-changing circumstances and feelings.
Themes
ChangePerceptionExperienceLifeEmotions
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about embracing change, this quote can illustrate how our perspectives shift over time.
More from A. R. Ammons
All quotes →If the greatest god is the stillness all the motions add up to, then we must ineluctably be included.
A. R. AmmonsRead
For though we often need to be restored to the small, concrete, limited, and certain, we as often need to be reminded of the large, vague, unlimited, unknown
A. R. AmmonsRead
Definition, rationality, and structure are ways of seeing, but they become prisons when they blank out other ways of seeing.
A. R. AmmonsRead
Similar quotes
The spirit of democracy cannot be established in the midst of terrorism, whether governmental or popular.
Mahatma GandhiRead
Everything is explained now. We live in an age when you say casually to somebody 'What's the story on that?' and they can run to the computer and tell you within five seconds. That's fine, but sometimes I’d just as soon continue wondering. We have a deficit of wonder right now.
Tom WaitsRead
To be of no church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards are distant, and which is animated only by faith and hope, will glide by degrees out of the mind unless it be invigorated and reimpressed by external ordinances, by stated calls to worship, and the salutary influence of example.
Samuel JohnsonRead
One half of my head, from the top of my skull to the cleft of my jaw, hammers, bangs, sizzles while the other half, serene and content, looks on at the agony next door.
Rudyard KiplingRead
It is perilously easy to have amazing sympathy with God's truth and remain in sin.
Oswald ChambersRead
The slave-breeders and slave-traders, are a small, odious and detested class, among you; and yet in politics, they dictate the course of all of you, and are as completely your masters, as you are the master of your own negroes.
Abraham LincolnRead