There's a quality we could call vertical attention, which is an attention upward toward ancestors, spiritual states, angels, gods.
Robert BlyI think that poetry is important when you are shipwrecked, when the ordinary structures that hold you up are gone.
Robert BlyOne man wrote me, saying, 'You know who you are? You're nothing but a Captain Bly pissing up a drainpipe!'
Robert BlyYou have an utterly sincere glance when you look around after you are shipwrecked. You weep a long time on an island when you realize what's happened to you.
Robert Bly