Memory believes before knowing remembers

“If you know what you are going to write when you’re writing a poem, it’s going to be average. Creating a poem is a continual process of re-creating your ignorance, in the sense of not knowing what’s coming next. A lot of poets historically have described a kind of trance. It’s not like a Vedic trance where your eyes cross, and you float. It’s a process not of knowing, but of unknowing, of learning again. The next word or phrase that’s written has to feel as if it’s being written for the first time, that you are discovering the meaning of the word as you put it down.” Derek Walcott, as cited in Advice to Writers by Jon Winokur (via llibre)

(Source: litverve, via teachingliteracy)

“He thinks I suffer from depression. But I’m just quiet. Solitude and depression are like swimming and drowning. In school many years ago, I learned that flowers sometimes unfold inside themselves.” Simon Van Booy (via misswallflower)

(via teachingliteracy)

“Her laughter tastes like burnt sunshine, cactus, and the worm” Janet Fitch- White Oleander

“when I read, I don’t really read; I pop a beautiful sentence into my mouth and suck it like a fruit drop, or I sip it like a liqueur until the thought dissolves in me like alcohol, infusing brain and heart and coursing on through the veins to the root of each blood vessel.” Too Loud a Solitude, Bohumil Hrabal (via andyisreadingbooks)

(Source: andyispoesizing, via teachingliteracy)