Introduction to Poetry

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

Billy Collins

Perhaps the feelings that we experience when we are in love represent a normal state. Being in love shows a person who he should be.
Anton Chekhov

A task

To extract beauty from one's own milieu is one of the most difficult tasks of art.
Theophile Gautier

The past

The past is the only dead thing that smells sweet.
Edward Thomas

Green

I go for a walk in the forest of Fontainebleau. I get 'green' indigestion. I must get rid of this sensation into a picture. Green rules it. A painter paints to unload himself of feelings and visions.
Pablo Picasso

Poetry

Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it.
Vincent van Gogh

Art will never come except from some small disregarded corner where an isolated and inspired man is studying the mysteries of nature.
Jean-Francois Millet

Autumn's almost here

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.
Albert Camus

A poem

Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:
Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!

Edna St.Vincent Millay

God takes care of imbeciles, little children and artists.
Camille Pissarro

To be happy is not the purpose of our being rather it is to deserve happiness.
Immanuel Kant