Monday Morning Quote: Kurt Vonnegut and Saul Steinberg on Two Kinds of Artists

Who was the wisest person I ever met in my life? It was a man, but of course it needn't have been. It was the graphic artist Saul Steinberg, who like everybody else I know, is dead now. I could ask him anything, and six seconds would pass, and then he would give me a perfect answer, gruffly, almost a growl....

I said, "I am a novelist, and many of my friends are novelists and good ones, but when we talk I keep feeling like we are in two different businesses. What makes me feel that way?"

Six seconds passed, and then he said "It's very simple. There are two sort of artists, one not being in the least superior to the other. But one response to the history of his or her art so far, and the other responds to life itself."

I said, "Saul, are you gifted?"

Six seconds passed, and then he growled, "No, but what you respond to in any work of art is the artist's struggle against his or her limitations."

—Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without A Country

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

Monday Morning Quote: Louise Glück on Poetry

Poetry is autobiography stripped of context and commentary.

—Louise Glück, Proofs and Theories