What I thought was an end turned out to be a middle. What I thought was a brick wall turned out to be a tunnel. What I thought was an injustice turned out to be a color of the sky.
Tony HoaglandRead
So much of what I love about poetry lies in the vast possibilities of voice, the spectacular range of idiosyncratic flavors that can be embedded in a particular human voice reporting from the field. One beautiful axis of voice is the one that runs between vulnerability and detachment, between 'It hurts to be alive' and 'I can see a million miles from here.' A good poetic voice can do both at once.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the emotional diversity and depth that a poetic voice can express, balancing vulnerability with detachment.
Tony Hoagland's quote explores the unique qualities of poetic voice, highlighting how it captures a spectrum of human experience. It suggests that effective poetry embodies both the pain of existence and the expansive vision that comes from detachment, allowing for a rich and complex expression of feelings that resonate on multiple levels. A successful poetic voice can encapsulate these contrasting emotions simultaneously, making it powerful and relatable.
Themes
PoetryVoiceVulnerabilityDetachmentEmotion
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared at a poetry reading to highlight the depth of poetic expression.
More from Tony Hoagland
All quotes →When you're a student of poetry, you're lucky if you don't realize how untalented you are until you get a little better. Otherwise, you would just stop.
Tony HoaglandRead
Similar quotes
With 'Taxi Driver,' I had this eureka moment. I realized that acting could be much more than what I had been doing. I had to build a character that wasn't me.
Jodie FosterRead
Do you realize that people don't know how to read Kafka simply because they want to decipher him? Instead of letting themselves be carried away by his unequaled imagination, they look for allegories - and come up with nothing but clichés: life is absurd (or it is not absurd), God is beyond reach (or within reach), etc. You can understand nothing about art, particularly modern art, if you do not understand that imagination is a value in itself.
Milan KunderaRead
There is nothing as mysterious as a fact clearly described. I photograph to see what something will look like photographed.
Garry WinograndRead
Sometimes photographers mistake emotion for what makes a great street photograph.
Garry WinograndRead
When you think intensely and beautifully, something happens. That something is called poetry. If you think that way and speak at the same time, poetry gets in your mouth. If people hear you, it gets in their ears. If you think that way and write at the same time, then poetry gets written. But poetry exists in any case. The question is only: are you going to take part, and if so, how?
Robert BringhurstRead
I grew up in a drive-in theater, from the time I was 8, working in a snack bar watching four features every week. It was silent theater in the sense that this was a drive-in, which meant that I often saw the films going with no sound. But I learned to tell stories through action.
Twyla TharpRead