ten favorite quotes about poetry: # 2,1.

*
Someone emailed me recently, simply writing, "so what are your top two favorite poetry quotes?" Last year, responding to a tag in a meme, I posted a little series of my ten favorite, but apparently never did numbers one and two. So here goes:

(To read the others, click on the following: #8-10, #5-7, #3-4.)


2.) Artists love what is raw and degraded as much as what is seemingly fine. They are awed by creation and cannot let a single aspect of sensuous experience go unadmired.

- James Agee


1.) There's this little old Jewish guy with a bald head sitting at a piano and he's being interviewed. And I suddenly realize I'm looking at Igor Stravinski, the great Russian-American composer. The interviewer is saying to him, "So Mr. Stravinski, what is the greatest moment for you? Is it when you finally write the symphony?"
And he says..."No, No, No..."
He sounds like a New York cab driver.
"Is it when you've heard it played the first time by a symphony?" And he says...."No, no, no..."
"What about opening night when they premier it and herald it as being one of the greatest works of the 20th century?"
And he says...."No, no no..."
"So what IS the greatest moment for you?"
He was sitting at the piano with music on the thing there and he says: "I'm sitting here at the piano and for three, four hours I'm trying to find a note. I can't find the note and I'm going 'bum, bum'....'bum,bum'....'bum, bum' for three hours. Finally after three hours I find the note. That's the moment. There is nothing like it. That's everything"
So I started crying because I realized, I had just done The Graduate with Mike Nichols who had helped and had the patience for Anne Bancroftand Katherine Ross and myself and everyone else and the NEED to find that note above all else. It was to find the note day to day. That's what kept me going, you know like even the years before that film when I was lucky to be doing a play in front of ten people -- that moment when you find the note.

- Dustin Hoffman

*
The meme, I think, started on Nick Bruno's blog, They Shoot Poets - Don't They, and asked to “Give us at least 10 quotations pertaining to poetry - from 10 different writers &/or poets which best coincide with your philosophy vis a vis ars poetica. They can be posthumous or otherwise. The order is not important - unless it is to you.”
*

the tao of broccoli

*
I recently had my wisdom teeth removed, and after my dentist (who looks like House and is also so nice I can't help but have a crush on...) administered the local anesthesia, he left the room for a few minutes until the lidocaine started to work. Sitting there with nothing to do I guess I could have meditated but instead my eyes fell to a poster on the wall. The poster (and I'm convinced that my version of McDreamy had nothing to do with the decorating) was a collection of quotes by people "ages 5 to 95," and was entitled Things I've Learned. Most of the reflections were from adults and unsurprisingly included the typical dose of the patently false or downright cliche: I've learned that nothing is impossible; people are like the colors of the rainbow; etc. Then there were some others from adults that were more accurate and even sweet but trite: a marriage or intimate relationship is like playing the violin: to be any good you have to work at it every day; happiness is like perfume: if you give it to someone, you can't help getting some on yourself .

But then this from a seven-year-old: I've learned that you can't hide a piece of broccoli in a glass of milk.


(File under: reasons why everyone should spend at least an hour every week with someone under the age of ten.)
*

of the day

*
POEM: "Primp," by Olivia Cronk, in the most recent issue of elimae. Ohhh this poem. The poet also has a really wonderful, really smart chapbook, titled Gazooly, that one can read or download, for free, at Beard of Bees.

STAT: On average, the best paid doctors are neurosurgeons. The top-earning 1% of these highest paid physicians make an average of $2.7 million per year. The top 1% of hedgefund managers make, on average, $877 million per year. (From CNBC's "Untold Wealth.")
*

PERSON: Bill Nye, the once and always "Science Guy," has a new show on the Discovery Planet Green channel called Stuff Happens. Watch the show and/or check out the website to hear Nye explain the toxic effects of PDCB naptholene, which is the active agent in mothballs and what to use instead (lavender or cedar); how to save $ and avoid waste & toxins by making dust spray from lemons and olive oil; what common products contain formaldehyde and how today it takes one half the amount of formaldehyde to embalm bodies than it did 25 years ago because these days our bodies have so much of it already when we're alive (eww). At the show's website (or Planet Green's site home), also check out the green menu links, and especially the blue "Go Green" menu link, for some fun green-ideas and eco-friendly tips. These pages are really helpful for the holidays and have gift-giving ideas, recipes, and a lot of other relevant holiday info.

FIND: Jasper Bernes' superbly named blog, "Little Red's Resolution Trust Organization." Besides having one of the best-ever titles around, the poet's blog gives me new hope that poets, yes, are indeed often a highly evolved lifeform. High intelligence, high art, and high socio-political awareness, without the high drama that seems to infect so many poblogs and group-poblogs.

QUOTE: 'What someone in power doesn't want people to know - that's news. All the rest is just advertising. ~Dan Rather
*

love. sometimes.

1. Honeysuckle is my favorite scent.

2. Last night I watched one of my favorite films, Double Indemnity, and something Fred McMurray's character said, that I don't even remember from the dozens of other times I've watched it over more than a dozen years, jumped out at me. That's one of the things that really takes my breath away about great poems, music, films, and any kind of art: every time you experience it, there's always something new about the experience, something you learn or see or feel that you hadn't before. I hadn't seen the film in quite a while, so there was a lot of that, but what really just stood out and up and jumped up and out and bit at an important artery:

How could I have ever known that murder can sometimes smell like honeysuckle?

**

current favorite things

Words: Whereas by supposing they have given up themselves to the absolute arbitrary power and will of a legislator, they have disarmed themselves, and armed him to make a prey of them when he pleases. - John Locke

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent. - Thomas Jefferson

Art: Mel Kadel (un-scared, above) (see more of her work or buy a t-shirt here)

Books: The Assault on Reason, by Al Gore (a must must read; the likes of Locke and Jefferson would bow.)
This Clumsy Living, by Bob Hicok (blistering, tender, "a softness of phantom limbs marching through the forest," a shiver, an assault on silence, a brilliant ballet of words, life on a page.)

Music: Beautiful Maladies, by Tom Waits, and his song "Hold On" (God bless your crooked little heart) ; The Wishing Chair, by 10,000 Maniacs (a for-as-long-as-I-can-remember-favorite, favorite again, like a lot of these actually); Death Cab for Cutie's self-titled cd; the somewhat stray Alanis Morrisette songs "Offer," and "Still" (Her perception of God -- I am the harm which you inflict, I am your brilliance and frustration, I'm the nuclear bombs if they're to hit... I am your misfits and your praised, I am your grasping and expectation. I see you cheering on the war, I see you ignoring your children, I see you abusing the land, I see you and your selective amnesia, And I love you still. I am your fury and your elation, I am your yearning and your sweat... I am your crisis and delight, I am your death and your decisions, I am your passion and your plights. I see you holding your grudges, I see you gunning them down, I see you silencing your sisters, I see you lie to your country, and forcing them out. I see you blaming each other, And I love you still.) Oh, and once again, and again & again & again... Whatever, by Aimee Mann, super especially "I've Had It." (Listen to some or all of the cd here.)

Observations: My cat Ruby has learned how to chase her tail in the conventional way -- circles that are horizontal to the floor. Up until today, she always did it in a way that I've never seen another cat attempt -- 'like doing somersaults, 'circles that were verticle to the floor. (She is soooo entertaining.) Fortunately, despite her newly gained knowledge, she seems to prefer her own unique brand of tail-chasing. (I like that I've raised a cat who thinks for herself. *grin*)

Watching my neices and nephews growing up. (And come to think of it, it's pretty rewarding when I give myself the opportunity to watch myself grow up, as well.)

People: My eighteen-year-old neice; a baby named Kendall 's mom, my old and new friend, Stephanie; John Edwards, Al Gore.

New Find:The Journal of Aesthetics & Protest

Ten Favorite Quotes About Poetry: #4, #3.

These two are a virtual tie for me, which is somewhat interesting in that they seem to communicate such different tones, moods, and messages, although I think both are more nuanced than they appear to be, even though nuanced seems to be the last word one would use to describe them. And of course the sources of these quotes are both artists quite capable of dialectical thinking. Nonetheless, part of their appeal to me is how straight-forward, forthright, and succintly simple both, on many levels, are.

Mmm, and I love this: Allen Ginsberg said the first time he (either read Dylan's words or) heard Dylan sing "A Hard Rain," the last line made him cry. To see and hear Ginsberg talk about it (on a documentary about Dylan) really brings his reaction into such stark clarity that Ginsberg's response starts to approach the poignancy of Dylans quote itself.

3.) Poetry does nothing. - W.H. Auden

4.) And I'll tell it and think it and speak it and breath it,
I'll reflect it from the mountains so all souls can see it,
And I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinking,
And I'll know my song well, before I start singing.
- Bob Dylan

10 Favorite Quotes About Poetry: # 7, 6, 5.

5.) It's hard to get the news from poems, but men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there. -William Carlos Williams

6.) When I first started acting, it was because of my desire to connect. To that thing inside each of us. That light that I believe exists in all of us. Because acting for me is about believing in that connection... And through our combined belief, we can create a new reality. -Forest Whitaker

7.) The only thing that can save the world is the reclaiming of the awareness of the world. That's what poetry does. -Allen Ginsberg

10 Favorite Quotes About Poetry: #10, 9, 8.

I was going to steal this idea from Sarah Sloat (and am so honored that she said she was stealing my "favorites" idea, because she has one of the most creative and enjoyable blogs anywhere and always seems to be coming up with yet another great idea; see her list here) when I also was tagged by Sam Rasnake with a similar meme: Give us at least 10 quotations pertaining to poetry - from 10 different writers &/or poets which best coincide with your philosophy vis a vis ars poetica. They can be posthumous or otherwise. The order is not important - unless it is to you.

Not all of the quotes I chose are strictly about poetry, but all of them very much embody my "philosophy vis a vis ars poetica." I also took some liberties regarding who made the statements; the meme instructs, "from ten different writers and/or poets," but I included quotes by two actors and one from Bob Dylan.

And monkey-see-monkey-do again, instead of listing all ten in one post, I'll post a few at a time (yet another thievery of Sarah's blog).

First, an appropriate caveat: The poet exposes himself to the risk. All that has been said about poetry, all that he has learned about poetry, is only a partial assurance. - A.R. Ammons

8.) 'Something characteristic of the poetic imagination: a pressing need for utterance balanced by an equal determination to keep silent. - Eleanor Wilner

9.) Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat. - Robert Frost

10.) If there were no poetry on any day in the world, poetry would be invented that day. For there would be an intolerable hunger. - Muriel Rukeyser

What is it good for

I recently read somewhere that when one is writing, one is, "of course", not living. Depending on one's definition of living, that could, arguably, be true. 'Not a pleasant thought for a writer. Of course comfort can be found in knowing that when one is writing one is recording what it is to be living. And so starts the real argument, often captured by the oft-cited quotes:

Poetry does nothing. – W.H. Auden

It's hard to get the news from poems, but men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there - William Carlos Williams

But are these positions mutually exclusive? If mainstream culture is any reflection, poetry, it's true, is not doing much, and I would assert, equally as true is that people are dying "miserably every day for lack of what is found there." And if this is true, then poetry and all art is always important, but even more urgently vital at a time when tens of thousands of Americans, Iraqis, and others, are indeed dying because of the commands of a President who, seemingly elated with his role as Commander-in-Chief, boasted, "Bring it on!"; at a time when most every major phone company has been secretly providing the government with millions of Americans' phone records; at a time when children in the richest country on earth have a 1 in 4 chance of being born into poverty; at a time when many in government, as well as many in citizenry, are persuaded by chemical companies and oil conglomerates to act as if global warming is just a little bit more summer; at a time when it is representative of how dire things are to simply remember that George W. Bush is the leader of the "free world."

The word "siren" can be defined as a warning; something that cautions people to a danger or important event; a sound or sight that alerts. On the belief that any and all art can be and often is an alert, a small and not yet very loud, but earnest and aspiring Siren will soon be sounding. For more information, to contribute a small donation of money or any amount of artistic energy, or to submit quality poetry, visual art, short fiction or nonfiction (for the second issue), contact me by way of e-mail.