“Nothing is more distressing than a thought that escapes itself, than ideas that fly off, that disappear hardly formed, already eroded by forgetfulness or precipitated into others that we no longer master.”
Cortney Cassidy • A soft manifesto
In poetry, there is never a one-to-one correspondence between a word and its meaning. Instead, each word builds upon the words previous and the words that come after, and the poet chooses words not only for their sound but also their multiple meanings. Like herbs added to a soup or subtones and overtones in musical composition, each word adds not j... See more
Rhyd Wildermuth • The Elements of Man: A Mythic Framework for Masculinity — RITONA // A Beautiful Resistance
There were patterns in the fog, spirals of intent on the point of leaving a message, then swept away. This ghostly calligraphy had a forlornness to it, as though the Dead were trying to tell us something they could not tell, as though language had floated away from meaning, leaving behind only signs, whispers, gestures.
Jeanette Winterson • Night Side of the River
hoping to get to a piece of paper and a pencil fast enough to catch it. That way, when the poem reached her and passed through her, she would be able to grab it and take dictation, letting the words pour forth onto the page. Sometimes, however, she was too slow, and she couldn’t get to the paper and pencil in time. At those instances, she could fee
... See moreElizabeth Gilbert • Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
contain nothing. A dream enthralls us in its scenes, until we wake and wonder where it came from and where it went. A cloud forms out of thin air, never stops changing shape, and vanishes into nothing. And a flash of lightning stuns us with its brilliant light but reminds us of the brevity of what appears to be real.
Red Pine • The Diamond Sutra: The Perfection of Wisdom
There was even a time, decades ago now, when he began to write the poem, but it withered in his hands like a plucked flower. And so he learned to leave it alone, to let it grow in silence, until the silence consumed it, until the words fell asleep again beneath his skin. Now he wonders whether he will ever find them.