A man is either free or he is not. There cannot be any apprenticeship for freedom.
Amiri BarakaRead
Poetry is music, and nothing but music. Words with musical emphasis.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Poetry is fundamentally a musical form of expression using words.
Amiri Baraka suggests that poetry should be understood as a form of music, emphasizing the rhythm and sound of words rather than merely their meaning. This perspective encourages readers to appreciate the aesthetic qualities of language and how these qualities evoke emotions similar to musical compositions.
Themes
PoetryMusicWordsExpressionArt
In practice
Example use cases
In a poetry reading, when discussing the role of sound in verse.
More from Amiri Baraka
All quotes →what is lost because it is most precious what is most precious because it is lost
Amiri BarakaRead
I am inside someone who hates me. I look out from his eyes.
Amiri BarakaRead
And now each night, I count the stars. And each night I get the same number. And when the stars won't come to be counted, I count the holes they leave.
Amiri BarakaRead
The attempt to divide art and politics is a bourgeois which says good poetry, art, cannot be political, but since everything is … political, even an artist or work that claims not to have any politics is making a political statement by that act.
Amiri BarakaRead
I am inside someone_x000D_ who hates me. I look_x000D_ out from his eyes. Smell_x000D_ what fouled tunes come in_x000D_ to his breath. Love his_x000D_ wretched women.
Amiri BarakaRead
Similar quotes
But who is this, what thing of sea or land,- Female of sex it seems,- That so bedeck'd, ornate, and gay, Comes this way sailing Like a stately ship Of Tarsus, bound for th' isles Of Javan or Gadire, With all her bravery on, and tackle trim, Sails fill'd, and streamers waving, Courted by all the winds that hold them play, An amber scent of odorous perfume Her harbinger?
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The word-coining genius, as if thought plunged into a sea of words and came up dripping.
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What I need to write well is a combination of heat, light and solitude.
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I feel like my music has become a lot of things. It's hard to label the evolution, but I like there to be an evolution. I just like to paint with all different kinds of colors.
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I didn’t want a completely passive viewer. Art means too much to me. To be able to articulate something visually is really an important thing. I wanted to make work where the viewer wouldn’t walk away; he would giggle nervously, get pulled into history, into fiction, into something totally demeaning and possibly very beautiful
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Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree.
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