The mysterious thing about writing poetry is that when you're - when things are going poorly, when you're not thinking well, even making two sentences together is extremely hard and I just can't make the connections.
Edward HirschNow, the process of writing poetry is very messy. Not systematic, never quite the same
Edward HirschThen I found another one, grandpa's poem. It turned out it had been written by Emily Brontรซ and it wasn't my grandfather's poem at all, although my response to it, I think, was pretty much the same, I just had the author wrong.
Edward HirschWorks of art imitate and provoke other works of art, the process is the source of art itself.
Edward HirschIn a way, that's also a recognition that Dante needs Virgil and that the Inferno needs the Aeneid and that the epic needs a model and that for Dante to write this great poem he needs someone to come before him and he turns to Virgil's text, especially book six where Aeneas goes down into the underworld. And for me, that's a model of the poet's relationship to previous poetry, to another poetry as calling out for guidance.
Edward HirschI think it shapes it in very deep ways that you don't entirely understand. Rainer Maria Rilke said there are two inexhaustible sources for poetry. One is dreams, and the other is childhood. I think childhood is an inexhaustible source of your becoming who you will be and certain deep feelings are set inside of you.
Edward Hirsch