There are days we live_x000D_ as if death were nowhere_x000D_ in the background; from joy _x000D_ to joy to joy, from wing to wing,_x000D_ from blossom to blossom to_x000D_ impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.
Li-Young LeeRead
Every time you write a poem it’s apocalyptic. You’re revealing who you really are to yourself.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Writing poetry exposes one's inner self and truths.
This quote by Li-Young Lee highlights the profound nature of poetry as a form of self-exploration and revelation. Each poem acts as a personal apocalypse, unveiling hidden emotions, thoughts, and aspects of the self that one may not fully comprehend until they are expressed through the written word, suggesting that the act of creation is both transformative and illuminating.
Themes
PoetrySelf-DiscoveryTruthExpressionIdentity
In practice
Example use cases
In a poetry workshop, to encourage participants to explore their inner thoughts.
More from Li-Young Lee
All quotes →Brimming. That's what it is, I want to get to a place where my sentences enact brimming.
Li-Young LeeRead
A bruise, blue in the muscle, you impinge upon me. As bone hugs the ache home, so I'm vexed to love you, your body the shape of returns, your hair a torso of light, your heat I must have, your opening I'd eat, each moment of that soft-finned fruit, inverted fountain in which I don't see me.
Li-Young LeeRead
Similar quotes
I offer my performance as prayer for someone I've worked with as an actor or someone who has died. The image that comes into my head as I walk to the stage, I offer that performance up for that person.
Liam NeesonRead
I'd rather hold one note for an hour and modulate it so that it means something than play 3,000 notes in 15 seconds.
Brian EnoRead
But the cinephile is … a neurotic! (That’s not a pejorative term.) The Bronte sisters were neurotic, and it’s because they were neurotic that they read all those books and became writers. The famous French advertising slogan that says, “When you love life, you go to the movies,” it’s false! It’s exactly the opposite: when you don’t love life, or when life doesn’t give you satisfaction, you go to the movies.
Francois TruffautRead
I have a sweet tooth for song and music. This is my Polish sin.
Pope John Paul IiRead
Music is the reaching out towards the utmost realities by means of ordered sound.
Ralph Vaughan WilliamsRead
Angel and Muse approach from without; the Angel sheds light and the Muse gives form (Hesiod learned of them). Gold leaf or chiton-folds: the poet finds his models in his laurel coppice. But the Duende, on the other hand, must come to life in the nethermost recesses of the blood.
Federico Garcia LorcaRead