A studio, like a poem, is an intimacy and a freedom you can look out from, into each part of your life and a little beyond.
Jane HirshfieldRead
Any woodthrush shows it - he sings, not to fill the world, but because he is filled.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes that true creation comes from genuine inspiration rather than the desire for recognition.
Jane Hirshfield's quote highlights the idea that an artist, much like the woodthrush bird, creates out of an intrinsic need to express themselves. The woodthrush sings not to impress anyone but because it is naturally moved to do so. This serves as a reminder that authentic creativity stems from inner fulfillment rather than external validation.
In practice
In a discussion about the essence of art at an exhibition, one might say, 'As Jane Hirshfield beautifully put it, any woodthrush shows it - he sings, not to fill the world, but because he is filled.'
A studio, like a poem, is an intimacy and a freedom you can look out from, into each part of your life and a little beyond.
What we want from art is whatever is missing from the lives we are already living and making. Something is always missing, and so art-making is endless.
as some strings, untouched, sound when no one is speaking. So it was when love slipped inside us.
Tree It is foolish to let a young redwood grow next to a house. Even in this one lifetime, you will have to choose. That great calm being, this clutter of soup pots and books-- Already the first branch-tips brush at the window. Softly, calmly, immensity taps at your life.
I write because to write a new sentence, let alone a new poem, is to cross the threshold into both a larger existence and a profound mystery. A thought was not there, then it is. An image, a story, an idea about what it is to be human, did not exist, then it does. With every new poem, an emotion new to the heart, to the world, speaks itself into being.
Zen pretty much comes down to three things -- everything changes; everything is connected; pay attention.
I started to write as a child as soon as I could read, or even before, when my mother read me Beatrix Potter at bedtime. Writing seemed to me to be the only sensible way to live and be happy.
All art deals with the absurd and aims at the simple. Good art speaks truth, indeed is truth, perhaps the only truth.
We rode on the winds of the rising storm, We ran to the sounds of the thunder. We danced among the lightning bolts, and tore the world asunder.
I'm a great poet. I don't put my poems on paper: they consist of actions and feelings.
Photography can light-up darkness and expose ignorance.
In a way, the characters often do take over.
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