Poetry is a street fighter. It has sharp elbows. It can look after itself. Poetry can't be used for manipulation; it's why you never see good poetry in advertising.
David WhyteRead
To forge an untouchable, invulnerable identity is actually a sign of retreat from this world; of weakness, a sign of fear rather than strength, and betrays a strange misunderstandin g of an abiding, foundational and necessary reality: that untouched, we disappear.
Interpretation
The pursuit of an impenetrable identity is a retreat from reality, indicating fear rather than strength.
In this quote, David Whyte suggests that striving to create an impenetrable identity is essentially a fear-based reaction to the complexities of life. He argues that true strength lies in embracing vulnerability and acknowledging our interconnectedness with the world; in trying to remain untouched or invulnerable, we risk losing our essence and connection to existence itself.
In practice
In a motivational speech about embracing one's true self rather than hiding behind a façade.
Poetry is a street fighter. It has sharp elbows. It can look after itself. Poetry can't be used for manipulation; it's why you never see good poetry in advertising.
Poetry is often the art of overhearing yourself say things you didn't know you knew. It is a learned skill to force yourself to articulate your life, your present world or your possibilities for the future.
By definition, poetry works with qualities and dynamics that mainstream society is reluctant to face head-on. It's an interesting phenomenon that by necessity, poetry is just below the radar.
The price of our vitality is the sum of all our fears
The severest test of work today, is not of our strategies, but of our imaginations and identities.
We learn, grow and become compassionate and generous as much through exile as homecoming, as much through loss as gain, as much through giving things away as in receiving what we believe to be our due.
Reality television is to television what marble and gold are to real estate. The point is to dispense with the idea of taste. It's all id. The more unrestrained the better. We all know that 'reality' in reality television is not real. That anybody who would participate in reality television is a fake. But pretending otherwise makes them real.
If anyone tells you there is only one way, their way, get as far away from them as possible, both physically and philosophically.
Every poem should remind the reader that they are going to die.
Religious ideas and practices take root not because they are promoted by forceful theologians, nor because they can be shown to have a sound historical or rational basis, but because they are found in practice to give the faithful a sense of sacred transcendence.
Your descendants shall gather your fruits.
Before I knew that a man could kill a man, because it happens all the time. Now I know that even the person with whom you've shared food, or whom you've slept, even he can kill you with no trouble. The closest neighbor can kill you with his teeth: that is what I have Learned since the genocide, and my eyes no longer gaze the same on the face of the world.
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