A sentence is like a tune. A memorable sentence gives its emotion a melodic shape. You want to hear it again, say itโin a way, to hum it to yourself. You desire, if only in the sound studio of your imagination, to repeat the physical experience of that sentence. That craving, emotional and intellectual but beginning in the body with a certain gesture of sound, is near the heart of poetry.
Robert PinskyThe medium of poetry is a human body: the column of air inside the chest, shaped into signifying sounds in the larynx and the mouth. In this sense, poetry is just as physical or bodily an art as dancing.
Robert PinskyAn artist needs not so much an audience, as to feel a need to answer, a promise to respond... a good feeling about his art.
Robert PinskyIf a poem is written well, it was written with the poet's voice and for a voice. Reading a poem silently instead of saying a poem is like the difference between staring at sheet music and actually humming or playing the music on an instrument.
Robert Pinsky