People probably long for something genuinely personal in a society where the personal is often indistinguishable from the … - Rae Armantrout

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One cannot understand. . . the universality of laws of nature, the relationship of things, without an understanding of mathematics. There is no other way to do it.

Rae Armantrout

People probably long for something genuinely personal in a society where the personal is often indistinguishable from the "personalized. " Maybe the poetry audience member is searching for his or her own "personal space" and they expect the poet to be a sort of avatar of the private life. But that sort of representation is distasteful to me. Asking a poet to represent the personal life is, paradoxically, to turn the poet into something other than a person.

Genuinely, Long, Paradoxically, People, Personalized, Poet

Same Author Quotes

Poetry wants to make things mean more than they mean, says someone, as if we knew how much things meant, and in what unit of measure.

Mean, Poetry, Things, Units, Want

But here I hold your dream in my poem.

Dream, Hold, Poem, Your Dreams

Curled up in bed, I’m young in the old way.

Bed, Curled, Way, Young

As for the differences between audio and the printed page, the sonic aspects of poetry are important to me. I read my poems aloud to myself as I'm composing them. And I enjoy reading to an audience. I think people get tone more easily when they hear a writer read her work. Some people have told me they hear more humor in my poems at a live reading than when they see them on the page. I think that may be a matter of pacing. On the other hand, I've listened to a lot of poetry readings and I know how much you can miss. If you stop to really register one line, you miss the next three or so.

Audience, Composing, Page, People, Reading, Thinking

Metaphor is ritual sacrifice. It kills the look-alike. No, metaphor is homeopathy.

Kills, Looks, Metaphor, Sacrifice