Poetry is a process of getting back to the unconscious. Hence, I am always writing-even when I'm not facing the white space. I feel writers are like reservoirs of images. We take in what is around us.
Interpretation
Poetry taps into our unconscious thoughts and feelings, allowing us to express what we observe around us even when not actively writing.
In this quote, Yusef Komunyakaa emphasizes the idea that poetry is not just a conscious act of writing but a deeper process of connecting with the unconscious mind. He likens writers to reservoirs, collecting experiences and images from their surroundings, which enrich their creative process, suggesting that inspiration is constantly flowing, even in times of inactivity.
In practice
This quote can be shared in a poetry workshop to inspire budding poets.
Students often have such a lofty idea of what a poem is, and I want them to realize that their own lives are where the poetry comes from. The most important things are to respect the language; to know the classical rules, even if only to break them; and to be prepared to edit, to revise, to shape.
It wasn't a deliberate decision to become a poet. It was something I found myself doing - and loving. Language became an addiction.
We have to embrace the good over the bad. That has to be one's personal project.
I originally wanted to embrace the imagery and forthrightness of rap music. There are some interesting, dynamic voices in rap. But I find most of it irresponsible in its overt violence and commercialization of anger. As artists, we believe we can will action through language. If that's the case, we have to take responsibility for what we say.
I'm uncomfortable with the focus on the poet and not on the poem.
Poetry helps me understand who I am. It helps me understand the world around me. But above all, what poetry has taught me is the fact that I need to embrace mystery in order to be completely human.
I think it's not an accident that you don't have that many Asian American women writers who are breaking out. I don't think it's an accident that you don't have that many Asian American writers, either women or men. I don't think that immigrants are encouraged to become artists. That's very gendered and racialized and ethnicized.
Every human being is an artist, a freedom being, called to participate in transforming and reshaping the conditions, thinking and structures that shape and inform our lives
All the dancer's gestures are signs of things, and the dance called rational, because it aptly signifies and displays something over and above the pleasure of the senses.
Music can lift us out of depression or move us to tears - it is a remedy, a tonic, orange juice for the ear.
For me, there is a paradox in poetry, which is like the paradox in tragedy. You have the most terrible subject, but it's in a form that is so sensually gratifying that it connects the surviving heart to the despairing intellect.
That strain again! It had a dying fall: _x000D_ _x000D_ O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound _x000D_ _x000D_ That breathes upon a bank of violets, _x000D_ _x000D_ Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more: _x000D_ _x000D_ 'Tis not so sweet as it was before.
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