Poetry is a fireplace in summer or a fan in winter.
Robert HassRead
I think that the job of poetry, its political job, is to refresh the idea of justice, which is going dead in us all the time.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Poetry serves to revive our understanding and sense of justice, which often fades away in society.
In this quote, Robert Hass emphasizes the vital role of poetry in society as a catalyst for renewing our perspective on justice. He suggests that as time passes, the concept of justice can become stagnant or diminished in our consciousness, and it is through poetry that we can reconnect with and invigorate this essential idea, inspiring thought and action for a more just world.
Themes
PoetryJusticeArtPoliticsSociety
In practice
Example use cases
Sharing this quote at a poetry reading to highlight the social responsibilities of poets.
More from Robert Hass
All quotes βSometimes from this hillside just after sunset The rim of the sky takes on a tinge Of the palest green, like the flesh of a cucumber When you peel it carefully.
Robert HassRead
Take the time to write. You can do your life's work in half an hour a day.
Robert HassRead
There are moments when the body is as numinous as words, days that are the good flesh continuing. Such tenderness, those afternoons and evenings, saying blackberry, blackberry, blackberry.
Robert HassRead
When I was younger, I was so crazy about poetry that I didn't notice who was noticing. It seemed to me so tremendous and large.
Robert HassRead
Writing is an incessant process of discovery.
Robert HassRead
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Frank MccourtRead
A poem, as a manifestation of language and thus essentially dialogue, can be a message in a bottle, sent out in the βnot always greatly hopeful-belief that somewhere and sometime it could wash up on land, on heartland perhaps. Poems in this sense too are under way: they are making toward something. Toward what? Toward something standing open, occupiable, perhaps toward an addressable Thou, toward an addressable reality.
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Don't be too precious about your craft... there's only 26 letters and 12 notes, and Shakespeare and Beethoven said it all better than any of us ever will
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Everything is art. Everything is politics.
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If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn't matter a damn how you write.
W. Somerset MaughamRead