A poem should not mean but be.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that a poem is not merely a vehicle for conveying meaning, but is an artistic expression in itself.
Archibald Macleish's quote emphasizes that poetry transcends mere interpretation and should be appreciated for its intrinsic qualities. Rather than focusing solely on the underlying message, one should revel in the experience and emotions evoked by the poem itself, highlighting the artistic nature of poetry in its purest form.
In practice
During a poetry reading event to highlight the beauty of poetry as an art form.
To see the earth as we now see it, small and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see ourselves as riders on the earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the unending night ~ brothers who see now they are truly brothers.
Journalism is concerned with events, poetry with feelings. Journalism is concerned with the look of the world, poetry with the feel of the world.
How shall freedom be defended? By arms when it is attacked by arms, by truth when it is attacked by lies, by faith when it is attacked by authoritarian dogma. Always, in the final act, by determination and faith.
Races didn't bother the Americans. They were something a lot better than any race. They were a People. They were the first self-constituted, self-declared, self-created People in the history of the world.
The business of the law is to make sense of the confusion of what we call human life - to reduce it to order but at the same time to give it possibility, scope, even dignity.
Never in all their history have men been able truly to conceive of the world as one: a single sphere, a globe, having the qualities of a globe, a round earth in which all the directions eventually meet, in which there is no center because every point, or none, is center - an equal earth which all men occupy as equals. The airman's earth, if free men make it, will be truly round: a globe in practice, not in theory.
It's a luxury being a writer, because all you ever think about is life.
Technical knowledge is not enough. One must transcend techniques so that the art becomes an artless art, growing out of the unconscious.
A writer, or any artist, canβt expect to be embraced by the people [but] you just keep doing your work - because you have to, because itβs your calling.
I wrote poetry from the time I could write. That was the only way I could begin to express who I was but the poems didn't make sense to my teachers. They didn't rhyme. They were about the wind sounds, the planets' motions, never about who I was or how I felt. I didn't think I felt anything. I was this mind more than a body or a heart. My mind photographing the stars, hearing the wind.
Beautiful forms and compositions are not made by chance, nor can they ever, in any material, be made at small expense. A composition for cheapness and not excellence of workmanship is the most frequent and certain cause of the rapid decay and entire destruction of arts and manufacturers.
Elegance has nothing to do with fashion.
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