Poetry is not easy. Or should I say, real poetry is not easy.
Robert PinskyRead
'Write' is almost the wrong verb for what I do. I think 'compose' is more accurate because you're trying to make the sounds in your mind and in your voice. So I compose while I'm driving or in the shower.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Writing is more about composition than mere transcription of words.
In this quote, Robert Pinsky emphasizes the artistic nature of writing, suggesting that it involves crafting and composing ideas as if they were music. He indicates that true writing occurs within the mind and voice, and can happen in spontaneous moments, such as while driving or showering, highlighting the inherent creativity involved in the process.
Themes
WritingCompositionCreativityArtExpression
In practice
Example use cases
In a workshop on creative writing, one could use this quote to emphasize the creativity involved in the writing process.
More from Robert Pinsky
All quotes →The medium of poetry is a human body: the column of air inside the chest, shaped into signifying sounds in the larynx and the mouth. In this sense, poetry is just as physical or bodily an art as dancing.
Robert PinskyRead
Poetry is the most bodily of the arts.
Robert PinskyRead
Sometimes the ideas that mean the most to you will feel true long before you can quite formulate them or justify them.
Robert PinskyRead
New Jersey is the most poetic state: close enough to New York to be urban and cosmopolitan, far enough to be desirous and unsure; densely populated, but full of farms and woods, with the most deer of any state.
Robert PinskyRead
For a lot of people, well-meaning teaching has made poetry seem arcane, difficult, a kind of brown-knotting medicine that might be good for you but doesn't taste so good. So I tried to make a collection of poetry that would be fun. And that would bring out poetry as an art, rather than the challenge to say smart things.
Robert PinskyRead
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