A speech is something you say so as to distract attention from what you do not say.
Interpretation
A speech can often divert focus from the key points that are intentionally left unspoken.
William Stafford's quote suggests that speeches are crafted not only to convey specific messages but also to obscure certain truths or omissions. The act of speaking can create a distraction that draws attention away from what is not being explicitly stated, highlighting the importance of subtext and the implicit messages behind public discourse.
In practice
In a political debate, a candidate might focus on certain issues while avoiding others.
I keep following this sort of hidden river of my life, you know, whatever the topic or impulse which comes, I follow it along trustingly. And I don't have any sense of its coming to a kind of crescendo, or of its petering out either. It is just going steadily along.
They miss the whisper that runs any day in your mind, "Who are you really, wanderer?"-- and the answer you have to give no matter how dark and cold the world around you is: "Maybe I'm a king.
The things you do not have to say make you rich. Saying things you do not have to say weakens your talk. Hearing things you do not need to hear dulls your hearing. And things you know before you hear them β those are you, those are why you are in the world.
A poem is a serious joke, a truth that has learned jujitsu.
So, the world happens twice--_x000D_ once what we see it as;_x000D_ second it legends itself_x000D_ deep, the way it is.
The earth says have a place, be what that place_x000D_ requires; hear the sound the birds imply_x000D_ and see as deep as ridges go behind_x000D_ each other.
The first rule of my speaking is: listen!
I don't know what a softball question is. All I know is I have no agenda. I ask short questions, and I listen to the answer.
Your purpose is to make your audience see what you saw, hear what you heard, feel what you felt.
It is not so much the content of what one says as the way in which one says it. However important the thing you say, what's the good of it if not heard or, being heard, not felt?
I don't know the rules of grammar... If you're trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language, the language they use every day, the language in which they think. We try to write in the vernacular.
Effective communication is 20% what you know and 80% how you feel about what you know.
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