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Poems are rough notations for the music we are.
Rumi
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Poems express the deeper essence of our existence, like music captures our emotions.

In this quote, Rumi suggests that poetry serves as a fundamental expression of our inner selves, much like music reflects our emotions and experiences. He implies that poems are the raw, unrefined representations of the deeper harmonies and rhythms that define who we are as human beings, capturing thoughts and feelings that intertwine to create the essence of our existence.

Themes

PoemsMusicExpressionEssenceEmotion

In practice

Example use cases

In a poetry workshop discussion about the role of emotions in writing.

More from Rumi

My dear heart, never think you are better than others. Listen to their sorrows with compassion. If you want peace, don't harbor bad thoughts, do not gossip and don't teach what you do not know.
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Whatever you keep hidden in your heart, God _x000D_ manifests in you outwardly. Whatever the root of _x000D_ the tree feeds on in secret, affects the bough and _x000D_ the leaf.
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Come on sweetheart let's adore one another before there is no more of you and me
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If a serious statement is defined as one that may be made in terms of waking life, poetry will never rise to the level of seriousness. It lies beyond seriousness, on that more primitive and original level where the child, the animal, the savage, and the seer belong, in the region of dream, enchantment, ecstasy, laughter. To understand poetry we must be capable of donning the child's soul like a magic cloak and of forsaking man's wisdom for the child's.
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