I dance/for the joy of surviving, at the edge of the road.
Interpretation
The quote expresses finding joy in the act of living, especially in difficult circumstances.
In this quote, Stanley Kunitz emphasizes the importance of celebrating life even amidst challenges. Dancing becomes a symbol of resilience and joy, suggesting that survival and the act of living can be a beautiful and liberating experience, even 'at the edge' where life may seem precarious.
In practice
This quote can be used in a motivational speech about overcoming life's challenges.
When you look back on a lifetime and think of what has been given to the world by your presence, your fugitive presence, inevitably you think of your art, whatever it may be, as the gift you have made to the world in acknowledgment of the gift you have been given, which is the life itself... That work is not an expression of the desire for praise or recognition, or prizes, but the deepest manifestation of your gratitiude for the gift of life.
Some poems present themselves as cliffs that need to be climbed. Others are so defensive that when you approach their enclosure you half expect to be met by a snarling dog at the gate. Still others want to smother you with their sticky charms.
...few young poets [are] testing their poems against the ear. They're writing for the page, and the page, let me tell you, is a cold bed.
Writer's block is a natural affliction. Writers who have never experienced it have something wrong with them. It means there isn't enough friction-that they aren't making enough of an effort to reconcile the contradictions of life. All you get is sweet monotonous flow. Writer's block is nothing to commit suicide over. It simply indicates some imbalance between your experience and your art, and I think that's constructive.
I want to write poems that are natural, luminous, deep, spare. I dream of an art so transparent that you can look through and see the world.
The heart breaks and breaks and lives by breaking it is necessary to go through dark and deeper dark and not to turn
Life is beautiful. You have to be thankful that we are living. Wherever you look is beauty. I know about the bad things, but I look for the good things.
Determine to live life with flair and laughter.
There may be more beautiful times, but this one is ours.
I believe the poor fierce-eyed child had figured out that with a mere fifty dollars in her purse she might somehow reach Broadway or Hollywood - or the foul kitchen of a diner (Help Wanted) in a dismal ex-prairie state, with the wind blowing, and the stars blinking, and the cars, and the bars, and the barmen, and everything soiled, torn, dead.
We try, we fail, we posture, we aspire, we pontificate - and then we age, shrink, die, and vanish.
My view is that, you know, life unfolds at its own rhythm. You know, I have never lived a life that I thought I could plan out. And I'm just trying to do the best I can every day. I find I have a lot to get done between the time I get up and the time I go to bed.
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