But there is a third mode of trancendence: in it language simply ceases, and the motion of spirit gives no further outward manifestation of its being. The poet enters into silence. Here the word borders not on radiance or music, but on night. — George Steiner, from “Silence and the Poet,” Language and Silence: Essays… Continue reading George Steiner
–luring me to a past that never was. This is the treachery of nostalgia. — Natasha Trethewey, from “Siren” in “Mythology,” Thrall: Poems (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012)
See, we were never about butterflies. We’ve always been about burning stars. All about us is unearthly and radiant. ― Anna Akhmatova, Anna Of All The Russias: A Life Of Anna Akhmatova by Elaine Feinstein. (Vintage, April 10, 2007) Originally published 2005.
Fear knocked at the door and faith answered. No one was there. — Anonymous. Found in an English pub after one of the many London bombings by Hitler during World War II.
The desire to go home that is a desire to be whole, to know where you are, to be the point of intersection of all the lines drawn through all the stars, to be the constellation-maker and the center of the world, that center called love. To awaken from sleep, to rest from awakening, to… Continue reading Rebecca Solnit
Poetry remakes and prolongs language; every poetic language begins by being a secret language, that is, the creation of a personal universe, of a completely closed world. The purest poetic act seems to re-create language from an inner experience that … reveals the essence of things. — Mircea Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. (Princeton… Continue reading Mircea Eliade
Someday it all comes. — Joan Didion, “On Keeping a Notebook,” Slouching Towards Bethlehem. (Farrar, Straus and Giroux October 1, 1990) Originally published 1968.
