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'Poetry has a great digestive system and can consume and recycle almost anything. It's the poet's persona that gives meaning to the process. The first important act of the imagination is to create the person who will write the poems. And that's not the end of it. We have to invent and reinvent who we are until we arrive at the self we can bear to live with and die with. Art demands of the artist the capacity for self-renewal. Without it, art withers. And so does the life.'
- STANLEY KUNITZ
what you were is not enough.
what you are is not enought either.
what you will be will always not suffice.
if you are a sigh
turn yourself into a word
if you are a word
reinvent reconvert
recycle
be not just a word
be a phrase
be this sentence
be this paragraph
be this short story
be this novel
be this universal prayer
of marvel
do not just be a nail but be a hammer
do not just be snail but be sparrow
what if you are nothing at all at the end?
then be the perfection of nothing
just be the best
of this reinventing
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Related quotes
Reinventing Ourselves
'Poetry has a great digestive system and can consume and recycle almost anything. It's the poet's persona that gives meaning to the process. The first important act of the imagination is to create the person who will write the poems. And that's not the end of it. We have to invent and reinvent who we are until we arrive at the self we can bear to live with and die with. Art demands of the artist the capacity for self-renewal. Without it, art withers. And so does the life.'
- STANLEY KUNITZ
what you were is not enough.
what you are is not enought either.
what you will be will always not suffice.
if you are a sigh
turn yourself into a word
if you are a word
reinvent reconvert
recycle
be not just a word
be a phrase
be this sentence
be this paragraph
be this short story
be this novel
be this universal prayer
of marvel
do not just be a nail but be a hammer
do not just be snail but be sparrow
what if you are nothing at all at the end?
then be the perfection of nothing
just be the best
of this reinventing
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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The Purple Cast
A breath is not a word
A whisper is not a sentence
Pain is not a paragraph
But Pride and Prejudice do make a book
What is a word?
Where is a sentence?
Who is paragraph?
When is a book?
All these question race through our minds
The universal quest for understanding
Flat on our backs, we contemplate
While the ambulance siren sounds
poem by Cornelia Ceilings
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Today... 'The Word
Word of love and the Word made flesh
Word incarnate forever blessed
Word of life and the Word of light
Word of power and Word of might.
Word that was spoken, Word of the Lord
Word of the Law and the Word of God
Word of peace and Word eternal
Word of truth and last Word of all.
Word of wisdom and the Word of healing
Word from heaven, a Word so appealing
Word fulfilling the Word of prophecy
Word of the Spirit and Word of destiny.
Word of exhortation and Word of grace
Word of encouragement and Word of faith
Word of promise and a Word of insight
Word from the beginning and Word of delight.
Word of knowledge and a Word of boldness
Word of peace and the Word of righteousness
Word of the covenant and Word of love
Word of the Father from heaven above.
(see also the additional information in the Poet's notes box)
Faculty
Sometimes it seems so hard to work out the words,
and then again it seems not hard at all. Just write,
is as simple as that. There are times i can't seem to
work the words, other times the words come up
bubbling in my head with character and meaning.
At times i feel challenged by other writers, and i
begging to doubt my ability to work the words,
i simple read another writer and then i know i have
nothing to be worry about. I understand then that my
contest is with myself and not with other writers.
We all think about the same things, because once
in our life’s we all go through the same situations.
We all have the brain to create anything in our heads.
There’s nothing that i can't do if i focus and if i
don't focus; “you see” this word- focus is meaningful
in some ways, we need the focus, but in poetry we
need more the fantasy in our thoughts, the meaning
to our words, focusing can be important, but if your
head is not in the mood, there’s not going to be any
words bubbling up, even though you don’t need it so
much, because you can create a poem out of anything.
There’s one thing about writing, and reading poetry,
understanding the meaning behind the words.
Every word or phrase has a meaning behind, this is
where readers need to understand; for example-if i'm
drinking away my sorrows, it can mean, crying my
heart out, it can mean, i need to forget, it can mean,
a big hangover, it can mean, sleeping out in the porch,
it can mean, forgetting all you did last night; how many
things out of a phrase. Right know I would just like
to be in my cabin and sit right in front of the fire-place
with a bottle of wine and enjoy my pastoral life while
i write, amazing things.
poem by Elenushka Toledo
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The Word
Find the word, understand the word,
Depend on the word;
The word is heaven and space, the word the earth,
The word the universe.
The word is in our ears, the word is on our tongues,
The word the idol.
The word is the holy book, the word is harmony,
The word is music.
The word is magic, the word the Guru.
The word is the body, the word is the spirit, the word is being,
The word Not-being.
The word is man, the word is woman,
The Worshipped Great.
The word is the seen and unseen, the word is the existent
And the non-existent.
Know the word, says Kabir,
The word is All-powerful.
Word life
Word word life life
word life life word.
Life has its own word
Word has its own life.
word life life word
Life life word word.
Are you ready to catch
The word in your life?
Has your word the strength
And power the bear the life?
Through the word
Is your life become happy?
Word word life life
Coining of words through life
Is the successful art
That is to cultvate.
You are here
I am here
Words are around us
Go and trace
Go go and crash.
poem by Gajanan Mishra
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This word...
This word is life,
this word is love,
this word is peace and this word makes you live it needs no complications.
So this is a word.
A word thats happines that word that lifts you up
its a word thats against all bad its a word that needs no piracy.
Its forgiving after you corrupted the word
this word is easy to call easy to spell easy to use easy to write even a dumbest pesom will spell it. Its useful
its artistic and intelligent
this
this
this word is powerful
make use of it
for it never turns its back on its word...
poem by Ernest Makuakua
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It Is A Habit
writing poems
when you really write poems
everyday and every moment of your life
even when you're in the middle of your
bread and butter eating thing
or even when you are defecating
writing poems becomes a habit
even when you sleep even when you dream
writing poems becomes a part of your system
you eat poetry you vomit poetry
you digest poetry you poo poetry
you breathe poetry you sweat poetry
you love poetry and you live with your poetry
and at the end you die with poetry
and your epitaph says: here lies the poet,
choked with poetry.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Soap
you wish i were true
to every word i wrote in my poems
like sadness
that i must be sad when my poems
talk about sadness
like separation and disgust and pain
that i must suffer
with the poems i write that i must have despair
and pain too
and disgust
for every word of disgust written in every word
in every line
how cruel of you
how cruel of truth
how can i justify my death when i speak only of death
and in the very poem
where i write the word
death
there is soap
there is this box of untruths in pandora and when i open it
they must spread and you may refuse to believe
me again
but it would be very cruel of you
to make these poems
all these poems be my life my only life
and lived
and day by day lived in accordance with the
mouths of these poems
empathy
is the word, it is like i am putting my feet in another person's
shoes
then i write, and i could have written about this word: happiness
joy, bliss
ecstasy, light, and amazing glory
i choose not to,
i think, i have too much of it, and i do not share it for now
there is no necessity
and i cannot really help
with so much loneliness and sadness out there
with them i stretch my hands to hold them and feel them
and they all become
myself. it is not soap then, and there are no bubbles in the skies
there is no child playing amazed by the bubbles that burst and by the
bubbles that
are so abundant.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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A Poet Loses His Power For Poetry
A POET LOSES HIS POWER FOR POETRY
A poet loses his power for poetry
He can put down words
But they no longer have poetry in them
Something of the feeling of what real poetry is
is gone.
He strives
He writes again and again
He puts words down in the forms and in the shapes his poems usually take
But he has no poetry in him
He has lost what he is
And all he can do
is strive again and again
Word after word
Silence after silence
To hear within himself again
A voice he does not have.
The poet is writing poetry
And it is not poetry
The poet is dead
And he is pretending to be alive
Is this a poem?
Is he a poet
Is he dead?
Is he alive?
poem by Shalom Freedman
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The time I discovered myself a Poet
I wouldnt say I was patient
but I have an interest in poetry
Is it the dawning of a new error
or will the sky be grey
I write how I see life and it is not always pleasant
I like to write abou experiences that I have been through
my poetry has changed as I ave changed
I see it as a hobby as I write in my grange
My poetry is mainly fiction but I also write about things that are true
I am not a person that would share alot of enthusiasim
poetry is a work of art
on each sheet of blank paper
I put my mark
Poetry is simple in this world of sin
I am not into shakesphere
what I write is authentic
the imagination on paper creates magic
a poem can change an atmosphere
I would like to say my poems mean something
my poems are meant to sting a mind
I want my poems to create pictures for people who are blind
poem by Natasha Browne
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Dear Lorca
Dear Lorca,
These letters are to be as temporary as our poetry is to be permanent. They will establish the bulk, the wastage that my sour-stomached contemporaries demand to help them swallow and digest the pure word. We will use up our rhetoric here so that it will not appear in our poems. Let it be consumed paragraph by paragraph, day by day, until nothing of it is left in our poetry and nothing of our poetry is left in it. It is precisely because these letters are unnecessary that they must be written.
In my last letter I spoke of the tradition. The fools that read these letters will think by this we mean what tradition seems to have meant lately—an historical patchwork (whether made up of Elizabethan quotations, guide books of the poet’s home town, or obscure bits of magic published by Pantheon) which is used to cover up the nakedness of the bare word. Tradition means much more than that. It means generations of different poets in different countries patiently telling the same story, writing the same poem, gaining and losing something with each transformation—but, of course, never really losing anything. This has nothing to do with calmness, classicism, temperament, or anything else. Invention is merely the enemy of poetry.
See how weak prose is. I invent a word like invention. These paragraphs could be translated, transformed by a chain of fifty poets in fifty languages, and they still would be temporary, untrue, unable to yield the substance of a single image. Prose invents—poetry discloses.
A mad man is talking to himself in the room next to mine. He speaks in prose. Presently I shall go to a bar and there one or two poets will speak to me and I to them and we will try to destroy each other or attract each other or even listen to each other and nothing will happen because we will be speaking in prose. I will go home, drunken and dissatisfied, and sleep—and my dreams will be prose. Even the subconscious is not patient enough for poetry.
You are dead and the dead are very patient.
Love,
Jack
poem by Jack Spicer
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The Word That Wouldn’t Fit (Fun Poem 25)
A writer’s life is full of woe,
you find a word you like,
then you write something,
and try to fit that word in,
but when you look again.
That word you thought of
it just won’t fit in,
no matter how hard you try it,
that word just will not go.
In a fit of frustration,
you stick it here and there.
Just like jigsaw puzzle
where the pieces will not fit,
so this word will not go anywhere.
In the end you say, “OH heck! ”
Then you put the word
to the back of your mind.
Maybe another day
in another poem,
that word just might fit.
Having said all that,
I’m not betting on it.
poem by David Harris
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If The Poems Keep Flowing
IF THE POEMS KEEP FLOWING
If the poems keep flowing
And the metaphors ripen on the trees
And the dreams say words even they do not understand
And all life in sound becomes a magical prescence of music
If all good things come in this process of writing
And my silence is forever stricken from the record of Time
Then why and how and where and must will I become again
Carry me along taddy like you done at the toy fair?
So after all the years of reading
Lost too in the flow of the words of others
Unable to hear myself without hearing them
Because all other poets are the poet I am and would be
And all I take in me slowly memorizing line by line phrase by phrase word by word
Is a kind of blessing
Which even this hushed hearing now cannot really explain
Or take away on the river of lost light forever
Shabbat Shalom.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Fundamental of Liar Chapter LVII: Used
There’s no word ‘used’ with loneliness
There’s no word ‘used’ with boredom
There’s no word ‘used’ with pain
There’s no word ‘used’ with rejection
There’s no word ‘used’ with ignorance
There’s no word ‘used’ with guilty
There’s no word ‘used’ with sacrifice
There’s no word ‘used’ with problem
There’s no word ‘used’ with slavery
There’s no word ‘used’ with piracy
There’s no word ‘used’ with power
poem by Maria Sudibyo
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Poem Life
what is...
a poem...?
some word
speaking...
some word
crying...
some word
trying...
some word
hitting...
some word
danching...
some word
loving...
some word
colling...
some word
lifing...
some word
loughing...
all the words
are poem...
feel free
your heart free..
love free
to write+ speak...
with freee...
making a poem
life your style...
poem by Otteri Selvakumar
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Woman And Poetry
writing poems together
with that woman is so much fun
i write mine, (i am much better than that woman)
i ask her to read my poems she obliges with her spectacles
as she opens her mouth to syllabicate
i gulp some saliva to my mouth
this woman is terrible
she makes me giggle
i have her word for word i have her metaphor per metaphor
there is no time to discuss
i like her to undress this time
i'll take the magic of her word
this time i will open my mouth
this time i will read all of her
i will not discuss i will not understand
i will just feel these metaphors
this mouth this tongue this body
this most important poetry
this love this lust this moment
after we have written
our poems together.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Term
At the last minute a word is waiting
not heard that way before and not to be
repeated or ever be remembered
one that always had been a household word
used in speaking of the ordinary
everyday recurrences of living
not newly chosen or long considered
or a matter for comment afterward
who would ever have thought it was the one
saying itself from the beginning through
all its uses and circumstances to
utter at last that meaning of its own
for which it had long been the only word
though it seems now that any word would do
poem by William Stanley Merwin
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The Poet Becomes The Poetry
THE POET BECOMES THE POETRY
After years of striving to write Poetry
The Poet becomes the Poetry
No word is not poetry in him
And no silence is not the sound
his own writing makes
Wherever he is
Whatever he does
is Poetry
Mediocre or not
Real or not
Loved or not
Understood or not
The Poet is Poetry
Unable forever to escape
what he Lives.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Coming Back....
pressing the orange.
it is not you that feels the pain
or the
pressure.
someone else does it for you
as you watch
when he twists his fingers and his face
but you
have other things to see
with the gladness of your
heart.
she sings a song early this morning
after she bathes herself
in extreme coldness
and i wonder why she did not use the hot shower.
it is the coldness of the morning
that makes her sing
as i still put myself under the thick cover
of a thick blanket.
this denial.
early shall she move out.
no word is wasted.
do not ask the meaning of moving out
it can be painful
reinvent the word, coming back, redefine it.
who knows?
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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