poetgirl

In Paradise they look no more awry;
and though they make anew, they make no lie.
Be sure they still will make, not being dead,
and poets shall have flames upon their head,
and harps whereon their faultless fingers fall:
there each shall choose for ever from the All.
apoetreflects: “A beautiful woman looking at her image in the mirror may very well believe the image is herself. An ugly woman knows it is not.”  —Simone Weil Painting: Berthe Morisot, Before the Mirror, 1890

apoetreflects:

“A beautiful woman looking at her image in the mirror may very well believe the image is herself. An ugly woman knows it is not.” 

—Simone Weil

Painting: Berthe Morisot, Before the Mirror, 1890

apoetreflects: “There is a logic of colors, and it is with this alone, and not with the logic of the brain that the painter should conform.” —Paul Cézanne Painting: Paul Cézanne, Les Grandes Baigneuses, 1894-1905

apoetreflects:

“There is a logic of colors, and it is with this alone, and not with the logic of the brain that the painter should conform.”

—Paul Cézanne

Painting: Paul Cézanne, Les Grandes Baigneuses, 1894-1905

It’s interesting if you really think about it, how clumsy and laborious it seems to be to convey even the smallest thing.

—David Foster Wallace, Oblivion (via sometimesagreatnotion)

apoetreflects: “If you have difficulty with writing, do not conclude that there is something wrong with you. Writing should never be a test of self-esteem.  If things are not going as you want, do not see it as proof of an unknowable flaw in your subconscious … If you tell yourself you are guilty for not writing brilliant sentences within five minutes, that stops your subconscious and leads to a host of writing problems.  Writing is not an index of psychological health. (Overconscientiousness is one reason a person might aspire to something too ambitious, and then blame himself [herself] if it does not come easily).  If you do have any guilt, earned or unearned, that is between you and your psychologist.  When you sit down to write, however, you must regard yourself as perfect, omniscient, and omnipotent. Of course, you are not omniscient and omnipotent; no human skill, if at all interesting, can be perfect every time.  Properly, therefore, you should feel that you have the capacity to write well, but that it is difficult. And you should not want an easy job—you do not want to be a hack—and therefore you should take all the trouble, and have all the patience, that writing requires.  Do not conclude, at the first difficulty, that you are hopeless.  This is the sense in which you must feel omniscient and omnipotent; not that everything you write will automatically be perfect, but that you have the capacity to make your work what you want to make it.” —Ayn Rand, from The Art of Nonfiction, edited by Robert Mayhew (Plume, 2001)

apoetreflects:

“If you have difficulty with writing, do not conclude that there is something wrong with you. Writing should never be a test of self-esteem.  If things are not going as you want, do not see it as proof of an unknowable flaw in your subconscious … If you tell yourself you are guilty for not writing brilliant sentences within five minutes, that stops your subconscious and leads to a host of writing problems.  Writing is not an index of psychological health. (Overconscientiousness is one reason a person might aspire to something too ambitious, and then blame himself [herself] if it does not come easily).  If you do have any guilt, earned or unearned, that is between you and your psychologist.  When you sit down to write, however, you must regard yourself as perfect, omniscient, and omnipotent.

Of course, you are not omniscient and omnipotent; no human skill, if at all interesting, can be perfect every time.  Properly, therefore, you should feel that you have the capacity to write well, but that it is difficult. And you should not want an easy job—you do not want to be a hack—and therefore you should take all the trouble, and have all the patience, that writing requires.  Do not conclude, at the first difficulty, that you are hopeless.  This is the sense in which you must feel omniscient and omnipotent; not that everything you write will automatically be perfect, but that you have the capacity to make your work what you want to make it.”

—Ayn Rand, from The Art of Nonfiction, edited by Robert Mayhew (Plume, 2001)

I believe that the most lawless and inordinate loves are less contrary to God’s will than a self-invited and self-protective lovelessness. It is like hiding the talent in a napkin and for much the same reason ‘I knew thee that thou wert a hard man.’ Christ did not teach and suffer that we might become, even in the natural loves, more careful of our own happiness. If a man is not uncalculating towards the earthly beloveds whom he has seen, he is none the more likely to be so towards God whom he has not. We shall draw nearer to God, not by trying to avoid the sufferings inherent in all loves, but by accepting them and offering them to Him; throwing away all defensive armour. If our hearts need to be broken, and if He chooses this as the way in which they should break, so be it.

—C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves  (via recycledsoul)

apoetreflects: “There are three good things in this world.  One is to read poetry, another is to write poetry, and the best of all is to live poetry.” —Rupert Brooke

apoetreflects:

“There are three good things in this world.  One is to read poetry, another is to write poetry, and the best of all is to live poetry.”

—Rupert Brooke

apoetreflects: On writing: “The only thing I can say is that it takes place—or the best of it takes place—in a sort of vacuum.  On the worst of mornings.  On the least likely of mornings.  When you expect nothing to happen.  When the page is blank.  When the mind is blank.  Even in a state of depression or melancholia.  And then, only with good luck … Oh don’t misunderstand me.  I think you have to be sitting there.  You have to ‘wait’ in good faith.  You have to to to work like anyone else, or I do any way.  I have to go to work at nine o’clock.  And in that sense you force it.  You’ve got to start in some way … You have to have a routine and live up to it and then hope for the best.” —Walker Percy Photograph and quotation from The Writer’s Desk by Jill Krementz (Random House, 1996)

apoetreflects:

On writing:

“The only thing I can say is that it takes place—or the best of it takes place—in a sort of vacuum.  On the worst of mornings.  On the least likely of mornings.  When you expect nothing to happen.  When the page is blank.  When the mind is blank.  Even in a state of depression or melancholia.  And then, only with good luck …

Oh don’t misunderstand me.  I think you have to be sitting there.  You have to ‘wait’ in good faith.  You have to to to work like anyone else, or I do any way.  I have to go to work at nine o’clock.  And in that sense you force it.  You’ve got to start in some way … You have to have a routine and live up to it and then hope for the best.”

—Walker Percy

Photograph and quotation from The Writer’s Desk by Jill Krementz (Random House, 1996)

apoetreflects: “At last I understood that the way over, or through this dilemma, the unease at writing about ‘petty personal problems’ was to recognize that nothing is personal, in the sense that it is uniquely one’s own. Writing about oneself, one is writing about others, since your problems, pains, pleasures, emotions—and your extraordinary and remarkable ideas—can’t be yours alone … Growing up is after all only the understanding that one’s unique and incredible experience is what everyone shares.” —Doris Lessing

apoetreflects:

“At last I understood that the way over, or through this dilemma, the unease at writing about ‘petty personal problems’ was to recognize that nothing is personal, in the sense that it is uniquely one’s own. Writing about oneself, one is writing about others, since your problems, pains, pleasures, emotions—and your extraordinary and remarkable ideas—can’t be yours alone … Growing up is after all only the understanding that one’s unique and incredible experience is what everyone shares.”

—Doris Lessing