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.
For the writer, the serial killer is, abstractly, an analogue of the imagination's caprices and amorality; the sense that, no matter the dictates and even the wishes of the conscious social self, the life or will or purpose of the imagination is incomprehensible, unpredictable.
The idea of songwriting is a transformative thing, and what I do with songwriting is take situations that are quite ordinary and transform them in some way. Apart from things like the murder ballads, the songs I write, at their core, are quite ordinary human concerns, but the process of writing about them transforms them into something else.
The artist in his calling of interpreter creates because he must. He is so much of a voice that, for him, silence is like death
My #1 job as a thriller author is to give readers the best white-knuckle thrill ride I am capable of. I am first and foremost in the entertainment business. If that suspenseful ride is also terrifying because it hits really close to home, then I am once again doing what I am supposed to do as a thriller author.
It is hard to think of any work of art of which one can say 'this saved the life of one Jew, one Vietnamese, one Cambodian'. Specific books, perhaps; but as far as one can tell, no paintings or sculptures. The difference between us and the artists of the 1920's is that they they thought such a work of art could be made. Perhaps it was a certain naivete that made them think so. But it is certainly our loss that we cannot.
I was a little girl with a pot belly and Afro puffs, hyperactive and overdramatic, and I found the theater and I found my home.
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