"For most of history poetry has been an oral art, it retains the vestiges of orality, an experience embedded in the sensuality of sounds."

Edward Hirsch Literature See all quotes by Edward Hirsch →

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“Inspiration is inbreathing, indwelling, poetry can never be entirely willed. It may be true a poet is given only a single line but that line is a gift from the unconscious, intution , a perception.”

“Poetry is a form of necessary speech.”

“The poem is an original and unique creation, but it is reading and recitation: participation.”

“Examples of Hirsch poems”

“Extract links Hirsch's 'Poets Glossary'”

“The poet creates it; the people by recitation recreate it. Poet and reader are moments of the same reality.”

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