Author

I don't think you can read poetry while you're watching television very well.

The idea of how to read a poem is based on the idea that poetry needs you as a reader. That the experience of poetry, the meaning in poetry, is a kind of circuit that takes place between a poet, a poem and a reader, and that meaning doesn't exist or inhere in poems alone.

From Edward Hirsch

The idea of a poem as a message in a bottle means that it's sent out towards some future reader, and the reader who opens that bottle becomes the addressee of the literary text.

From Edward Hirsch

My focus is on the reader and that the poet's job is not to inspire himself or herself. The poet's job is to inspire some future reader.

From Edward Hirsch

In every culture, in every language, there is expressive play, expressive word play; there's language use to different purposes that we would call poetry.

From Edward Hirsch

I don't think poetry will die, but I think that poetry does demand a certain kind of attention to language. It does demand a certain space in order to read it, and I think that space is somewhat threatened by the lack of attention that people have and the amount of time that they give to things.

From Edward Hirsch

The very good thing about MFA programs is their democratizing. They bring a lot of different people to the table.

From Edward Hirsch

A person who's only suffering can't write a poem. There are choices to be made, and you need to be objective.

From Edward Hirsch

I had feelings that I didn't know what to do with, and I felt better when I started writing them. I thought of it as poetry. I did notice girls really liked it. Better than football. They liked the combination.

From Edward Hirsch

I began to imitate what I was reading, and I started to become a poet, even though what I was writing were not good poems.

From Edward Hirsch

Edward Hirsch

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