"Before the wonderful, terrible wrestling with words and music there is the state of mind I'm calling 'poetic attention' ... a sort of readiness ... a form of knowing."

Don McKay Literature See all quotes by Don McKay →

React to this quote

More by Don McKay

“We inflict our rage for immortality on things, marooning them on static islands.”

“The medatative approach acknowledges that one moment will inevitably lead on to the next. We accept immortality instead of fighting it off.”

“The nature poet may , resort to the field guide or library but will keep coming back , figuratively speaking, to the trail - to the grain of experience.”

“As I grew older the poetic surround becomes more important. I realize that the 'poetic attention' was more important to me than poetry was. The 'poetic attention' being a kind of longing without the desire to posess.”

“Phenomenology is one name for the path back from the object to the thing, the counterbalance to the objectification or 'progress'.Poetry is another.”

“Poets are supremely interested in what language can't do , in order to gesture outside, they use language in a way that flirts with its destruction.”

Resonant Thoughts

"To know that the Biblical stories have a phenomenological truth is really worth knowing because the poor fundamentalists, they're trying to cling to their moral structure and I understand why, because…"

— Jordan Peterson

Politics1962

#mind

"While single women may not have a man they can count on or call at four in the night, they do have the knowledge that when a man comes to see them he wants to be with them. And while he may come less …"

— Merle Shain

Journalism1935–1989

#knowledge

"The distinction between individuals is not to be found in self-interest. It is to be found in the degree of intelligence they apply in interpreting their self-interest. The "selfless" one, in the name…"

— Leonard E. Read

Literature1898–1983

#knowledge

"He who needs something to rebel against is less of a social anarchist than he who seeks to create something against which there is no need to rebel. There may be no end to the ugly, sordid, and horrif…"

— Giovanni Baldelli

Literature1914–1986

#happiness