In the particular presence of memorable language we can find a reminder of our ability to know and retain knowledge itself: the brightness wherein all things come to see.
Robert PinskyTo talk about the reality of life here and the work that you do here at the university.
Robert PinskyThe medium of poetry is not words, the medium of poetry is not lines-it is the motion of air inside the human body, coming out through the chest and the voice box and through the mouth to shape sounds that have meaning. It's bodily.
Robert PinskyA 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 Pinsky