Every day, every day I hear enough to fill a year of nights with wondering.
The poem has a social effect of some kind whether or not the poet wills it to have. It has kinetic force, it sets in motion . . . [ellipsis in source] elements in the reader that would otherwise be stagnant.
One of the obligations of the writer is to say or sing all that he or she can, to deal with as much of the world as becomes possible to him or her in language.
The day's blow rang out, metallic -- or it was I, a bell awakened, and what I heard was my whole self saying and singing what it knew: I can
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Published Sources for Quotations Above:
F:
A Sequence," in "The Jacob's Ladder," st. 2, 1961.
R:
Every Day," pt. 3, in "Breathing the Water," 1989.
A:
In "Against Forgetting," 1993.
N:
The Poet in the World," 1973.
K:
Variation on a Theme by Rilke," pt. 1, in "Breathing the Water," 1989.
