No poet is ever completely lost. He has the secret of his childhood safe with him, like some secret cave in which he can kneel. And, when we read his poetry, we can join him there.
Interpretation
Poets hold the essence of their childhood within them, allowing readers to connect with that innocence through their work.
The quote emphasizes that a poet's true essence and inspiration stem from their childhood experiences, which remain safeguarded within them like a hidden treasure. When readers engage with the poet's work, they are invited to share in this intimate space, connecting with the emotions and memories that shaped the poet's voice, allowing for a profound and shared artistic experience.
In practice
In a literary discussion about the inspiration behind a poet's work.
Why should a novelist not also be a historian? To force unnatural divisions within the English language is to work against its capacious and accommodating nature. To expect a writer to produce only novels, or only histories, is equivalent to demanding from a composer that he or she write only string quartets or piano sonatas.
It may seem unfashionable to say so, but historians should seize the imagination as well as the intellect. History is, in a sense, a story, a narrative of adventure and of vision, of character and of incident. It is also a portrait of the great general drama of the human spirit.
My parents said, Oh, he's going to be a director someday. I wanted to be an actor.
As long as you have the acting chops and the desire to get inside a character, you can play anything.
An essential portion of any artist’s labor is not creation so much as invocation. Part of the work cannot be made, it must be received; and we cannot have this gift except, perhaps, by supplication, by courting, by creating within ourselves that ‘begging bowl’ to which the gift is drawn.
Jazz is what I play for a living.
It's just someone has labelled us as having a different label to do what you do. I find that labels are the worst thing in the world for artistic expression.
As a viewer, the minute I start getting confused, I check out of the movie. Emotionally, I'm severed.
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