Monday Morning Quote: Kim Addonizio on Art as a Response to Hopelessness

Art is a way of dealing with hopelessness, with anger and despair and loss. It is a creative response. While there is a real distinction between art and therapy, the truth is that art is theraputic, It helps you to take something that is within you and make a place for it outside of yourself.

—Kim Addonizio, in Ordinary Genius

Monday Morning Quote: Ellen Hinsey on the Power of Poetry

Contrary to a generally held view, poetry is a very powerful tool, because poetry is the conscience of a society.... No individual poem can stop a war–that's what diplomacy is supposed to do. But poetry is an independent ambassador for conscience: it answers to no one, its crosses borders without a passport, and it speaks the truth. That's why, despite talk about its marginalization, it is one of the most powerful of the arts.

—Ellen Hinsey, in an interview with Poetry Magazine

I owe this week's quote to Garrison Keillor's wonderful The Writer's Almanac. I find it invariably interesting and inspiring, and I highly recommend that you subscribe to and support it.

Monday Morning Quote: New Poet Laureate Philip Levine on Surprise

[Y]ou have to follow where the poem leads. And it will surprise you. It will say things you didn't expect to say. And you look at the poem and you realize, "That is truly what I felt." That is truly what I saw.

—Philip Levine, in an interview with NPR