Poetry

The poet and Pulitzer Prize winner Mary Oliver with some suggestions for your one precious life:

“Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”

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

One thinks of Amit Majmudar, Christian Wiman, ­Tracy K. Smith, Ryan Wilson, and many others. These ­poets are only rarely published in prestigious publications (or, at least, publications with a prestigious legacy), and the group that should be the biggest supporter of these poets—conservatives—has tended to ignore poetry and the arts. When conserv... See more

But now it has happened,

No use in talking

The silence between me and you

Has never had meaning.

It was, love it, that was all

That was asked.

But now it has happened,

No words for the foretime,

The desperation has made me the same,

Has made me another.

Who looks at the shape of the fish

Grow giant on the side of his bowl,

Who walks on the terrace

Observing fol... See more

Poetry is an essential part of society—but only as itself and not as a vehicle for something else.

Poetry makes our thinking and being flexible, prepares us for surprises, invites us into risk, into a complex interplay of references and meanings.

I didn’t even knew I had held my breath

Until my body exhaled when I met you

To feel abandoned is to deny

the intimacy of your surroundings.

when the soul lies down in that grass,

the world is too full to talk about.

ideas, language, even the phrase each other

doesn’t make any sense.