Gerald Stern Quotes

I will look at the footprints going in and out of the water and dream up a small blue good to talk to.

I have left out what I don't remember or don't know. Temperament, fear, shyness, obedience, kindness.

I feel that my job, as an artist, is to disturb the peace. And to disturb it intellectually, linguistically, politically and literally.

Bruce Smith is a tender master of music, and beautiful lines, and complex thoughts, and fascinating wild personal and cultural references.

Some poems are art because of their passion.

Teaching poetry, teaching as such, is worthy - if back breaking.

I've spent hundreds of hours working over words, and part of me, a large part of me, has a desire to do something else.

Attachment has to do with suffering, so it's really close to Buddhism, because Buddhism wants to relieve you from suffering; you're supposed to escape from suffering.

For the Christian mystics, detachment meant to leave attachment so that God could enter you and take over completely and you could climb the ladder to their heaven. Kind of crazy, but what the hell?

If the Buddhist's job is to be detached, I think that the artist's job is to be both detached and attached.

It's a kind of liberation to break free in language, if you can break free, but it's also a confinement, because form confines you - whatever the form.

Oppressed cultures often envy those which are not, or oppressed individuals do, and sometimes those which - and who - are not envy those which - who - are.

Oppressed persons, oppressed cultures, tend to be more political, obviously, as are those with a rage for justice, or the crazy messianic desire.

Political means so many things. We are political willy-nilly. Political poetry is an easy invitation to disaster. But then so is love poetry. But we are a little more patient with bad love poetry.

I was ruined before I got started. I say ruined, but I could say blessed; I was too far gone to believe in it. And I'm shocked how generation after generation repeats the behavior.

Tolstoy is one of the greatest artists in history, but he finally became infused with the idea of the uselessness of art. He gave himself to his own kind of religion.

I've been active in a minor way compared to professional activists. I was a labor leader. I led two labor strikes. I've manipulated boards. I've led marches. I've done many things.

It's just that very few poets disturb the peace to any degree.

There are hundreds of prisons - sexual, political, cultural. But being a prisoner also gives you impetus.

Humor is not funny. Humor is something else. Funny is a joke, sometimes silly. Comedy is deep and connected to tragedy; comedy could be deeper than tragedy, in my view.

The artist looks for a subject. You know, a lot of new poets don't seem to have a subject. I don't totally understand that.

Sometimes a person thinks he's attached to one thing and he's really attached to something else.