"Stooping—plucking—sighing—flying"
Kunitz, Wright, Radnóti, Hecht, Carroll, García Lorca, Dickinson
Stanley Kunitz:
James Wright:
I care more about poetry and friendship than I care about an accidental twitch of flattery in brief print. I feel like the guy Ben Johnson wrote about: today I live forever, and tomorrow somebody will use my book to wrap a fish in.
Miklós Radnóti (trans. Steven Polgar, Stephen Berg, S.J. Marks):
Anthony Hecht:
To the degree that a poem strives for formal harmonies—by which I mean not only meter and rhyme, but the careful and deliberate resolution of all its parts, themes, metaphoric structures—the poet is in a position to gauge, to a certain degree, the extent of his success, at least in regard to his self-assigned task of braiding his loose ends into a coherent pattern. And he is able to guess how much tinkering still needs to be done.
Lewis Carroll:
Federico García Lorca (trans. W.S. Merwin):
Emily Dickinson:
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