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.
Gerald SternBruce Smith is a tender master of music, and beautiful lines, and complex thoughts, and fascinating wild personal and cultural references.
Gerald SternIf the Buddhist's job is to be detached, I think that the artist's job is to be both detached and attached.
Gerald SternYou could be attached to merely a description of a plant or a flower. Or a narrative of an event. Or rage at injustice. Isaiah and the other Hebrew prophets, in their rage, were being altogether attached - not at all detached, although as I think of the word "detachment," I also think of a sheet of paper, loose from its notebook, fluttering around somewhere in the wind trying to find its home again.
Gerald Stern