But most commonly, it's one poem that I work on with a lot of intensity.
Philip LevineRead
It's ironic that while I was a worker in Detroit, which I left when I was twenty six, my sense was that the thing that's going to stop me from being a poet is the fact that I'm doing this crummy work.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The speaker reflects on the irony of how their jobs hindered their aspiration to be a poet.
In this quote, Philip Levine expresses the irony of feeling constrained by his work in Detroit. He suggests that the low-quality jobs he held served as both a source of living and a barrier to achieving his true passion for poetry, highlighting the struggles artists often face when pursuing their creative dreams amidst the demands of everyday life.
Themes
PoetryWorkIronyAspirationStruggle
In practice
Example use cases
Use this quote to inspire young artists who feel discouraged by their day jobs.
More from Philip Levine
All quotes →Meet some people who care about poetry the way you do. You'll have that readership. Keep going until you know you're doing work that's worthy. And then see what happens. That's my advice.
Philip LevineRead
I'm afraid we live at the mercy of a power, maybe a God, without mercy. And yet we find it, as I have, from others.
Philip LevineRead
If that voice that you created that is most alive in the poem isn't carried throughout the whole poem, then I destroy where it's not there, and I reconstruct it so that that voice is the dominant voice in the poem.
Philip LevineRead
I'm saying look, here they come, pay attention. Let your eyes transform what appears ordinary, commonplace, into what it is, a moment in time, an observed fragment of eternity.
Philip LevineRead
Now I think poetry will save nothing from oblivion, but I keep writing about the ordinary because for me it's the home of the extraordinary, the only home.
Philip LevineRead
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