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I'm uncomfortable with the focus on the poet and not on the poem.


Yusef Komunyakaa

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I ate mythology & dreamt'
- Yusef Komunyakaa (Blackberries)
YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ...
KELLY JONES I'm in the middle of the road, it seems vague of unclear way, of where I'm going but no matter what ...
HLONIM They stand uncertainly underneath immense skies, and everything about them is drowned.
JACK KEROUAC I heard the Denver and Rio Grande locomotives howling off in to the mountains. I wanted to pursue my...
JACK KEROUAC I read my copy of On the Road and dug the scenery whizzing past. On the Road is a semi-autobiographi...
CORY DOCTOROW I am who I say I am,
I'm not some fantasy
of how you think you think you know
or who ...
JAMES HOWE All day long you sit and sew,
Stitch life down for fear it grow,

Stitch life down fo...
EDITH SITWELL But the dust! And the clutter! My housewifely and scholarly instincts were equally offended.
ELIZABETH PETERS But when have I ever needed saving?
"Are you a Wendy?" I whisper to myself, scanning the low ro...
TRACY WARD Don't sacrifice the present and attempt to achieve the impossible- to completely correct the past......
ASSEGID HABTEWOLD Rehashing the past wouldn't change anything. Time to move forward.
ZENA WYNN There is, I am sensible, an age at which every individual of you would choose to stop; and you will ...
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU But thing in the past are like plate that’s shattered to pieces. You can never put it back togethe...
HARUKI MURAKAMI The whole town had instantly gone to bed; the only noise now was barking dogs. How could I ever slee...
JACK KEROUAC I ate apple pie and ice cream—it was getting better as I got deeper into Iowa, the pie bigger, the...
JACK KEROUAC Somewhere along the line, the pearl would be handed to me.
JACK KEROUAC When you focus on being the best person you can be, you draw the best possible life, love, and oppor...
GERMANY KENT What's Your Road, Man?
JACK KEROUAC Next time I expect you to act a little friendlier and remember that we would like to get out of here...
TRACEY WARD Merry Christmas.” he says quietly, pulling something from his back pocket.
I frown in confusi...
TRACEY WARD Judgement is the forbidden objectivization of the other person which destroys single-minded love. I ...
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER ... I don't believe in ghosts - not the scary white sheet, boogie-woogie type of ghost anyway. And y...
KAREN TAYLEUR Man on Wire
LIVVY ANDERSON Everybody is on the run. Either from something or someone.
ANTHONY T. HINCKS We all grew up, those of us who took On the Road to heart. We came to cringe a little at our ...
SARAH VOWELL Why should I shatter your wonderful fantasy with my boring reality? ~ Evie Snow
CARRIE HOPE FLETCHER He felt as if his heart had dried up. I needed her he thought. I needed someone like her to fill the...
HARUKI MURAKAMI For the poet the credo or doctrine is not the point of arrival but is, on the contrary, the point of...
JOSEPH BRODSKY Mothers yielding Bibles, contemplating smearing the blood of lamb chops over her doorway. Anything t...
ANTONIA PERDU …there’s just something beautiful about walking on snow that nobody else has walked on. It makes...
CAROL RIFKA BRUNT Verse is not written, it is bled; Out of the poet's abstract head. Words drip the poem on the pa...
PAUL ENGLE That's the problem with ADHD: I have no focus; I get bored.
HANNAH GADSBY I want to rip off your logic and make passionate sense to you. I want to ride in the swing of your h...
JEFFREY MCDANIEL We needed a refrigerator for our new place and I've never bought a refrigerator my whole life. I wen...
BRIAN REGAN I don't focus on what I'm up against. I focus on my goals and I try to ignore the rest.
VENUS WILLIAMS I'm happy that I can focus on my body a little bit. I'm not happy to get surgery, but I'...
DWYANE WADE Maybe we're standing like coins on the edge?"
Allie considered this. "Meaning?"
"Meaning, ...
NEAL SHUSTERMAN Rather than standing defiant screaming to the winds to bring the storm,
be focused, grateful f...
TOM ALTHOUSE Georgie, stop trying to resurrect the shoes. They were never alive in the first place.
ILONA ANDREWS Einstein was a giant. His head was in the clouds, but his feet were on the ground. Those of us who a...
RICHARD FEYNMAN It turned out to be just his sort of life in Melbourne [Florida] -- a little three-room mini apartme...
WELLS TOWER We think a flower on a cliff is beautiful Because we stop our feet at the cliff's edge Unable to ste...
SOSUKE AIZEN Only on the Internet can a person be lonely and popular at the same time.
ALLISON BURNETT What is less often noticed is that it is precisely the kind of moral instruction that parents are co...
J.I. PACKER Life becomes easier when you learn to accept an apology you never got.
ROBERT BRAULT Rumors said that if he got drunk enough, he sometimes got his jollies by stripping naked and scaring...
ILONA ANDREWS Well, yelling real loud, that's an important skill to have, too. You never know when you might walk ...
DIANE HAMMOND Non avevo niente da offrire a nessuno tranne la mia confusione.
JACK KEROUAC A poet's cultural baggage and erudition can interfere with a poem.
DOUGLAS DUNN Working alone on a poem, a poet is of all artists the most free. The poem can be written with a modi...
JAMES FENTON I am not a poet, I am a poem!
LUKHMAN PAMBRA You may fall down when you dance on the edge but edge is the source of all miracles and mystery.
AMIT RAY What troubles us much, is of less importance to what troubles us much that invokes our thought, hear...
ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH One thing God has been showing me is that I'm not called to save the world, just to point those He p...
J.R. RIM I'm getting my psychology degree with a focus on marriage and family therapy.
DANIELLE FISHEL Great balls of fire. Don't bother me anymore, and don't call me sugar.
MARGARET MITCHELL I'm always very uncomfortable with people. It's something that I get upset with myself for, ...
NANCY MARCHAND If you focus on all that you could have been it will never be... but if you focus on who you are and...
JOHNNIE DENT JR. The poet strips naked. The philosopher takes notes.
MARTY RUBIN He looked around. The room, a few suitcases, some belongings, a handful of well-read books— a man ...
ERICH MARIA REMARQUE You're not standing on your head! Have a cookie. - Grimspite in Jinx on the Divide
ELIZABETH KAY I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the...
C.S. LEWIS Our standard rate. A doubloon a day."
It was generous. More than generous--some families would ...
ILONA ANDREWS So, regarding that tidbit about your having a fertile imagination when it comes to private activitie...
ILONA ANDREWS Even a poor tour guide is entitled to some happiness.
JACOB M. APPEL Maybe memories should be left the way they are.
MELINA MARCHETTA ...knew the futility of agonizing over why things had transpired as they had. What could have happen...
RAYMOND E. FEIST But God has also given us the power to forget, so that when the tragedy is over we carry on as norma...
MALALA YOUSAFZAI The landscape started hard, sharp black mountains over my shoulder and thirsty young saguaros huggin...
LAURIE PEREZ Acting doesn't bring anything to a text. On the contrary, it detracts from it.
ELAINE DUNDY Galatea Dunkel was a tenacious loser.
JACK KEROUAC ...and I realized no matter what you do it’s bound to be a waste of time in the end so you might a...
JACK KEROUAC This review is from: On the Shortness of Life (Penguin Great Ideas) (Paperback)

"I know t...
AMAZON REVIEWER Lambhood and tigerishness may be found in either gender, and in the same individual at different tim...
MARGARET ATWOOD Why does man not see things? He is himself standing in the way: he conceals things.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE In the rough-and-tumble play of politics, dog-whistle messages are copiously dispatched over the hea...
ERIK PEVERNAGIE I'm one of a few guys on the PGA Tour who doesn't work with an instructor. I'm not sayin...
RICKIE FOWLER We have tears in our eyes
As we wave our goodbyes,
We so loved being with you, we three. ROALD DAHL I'm uncomfortable with the limelight. I'm not the type to go to the places where I know I...
RACHEL HURD-WOOD It's all to do with the training: you can do a lot if you're properly trained.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II Like all best families, we have our share of eccentricities, of impetuous and wayward youngsters and...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II My husband has quite simply been my strength and stay all these years, and I owe him a debt greater ...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II It is easy enough to define what the Commonwealth is not. Indeed this is quite a popular pastime.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I have to be seen to be believed.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I have in sincerity pledged myself to your service, as so many of you are pledged to mine. Throughou...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I hope that tomorrow we can all, wherever we are, join in expressing our grief at Diana's loss, ...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I myself prefer my New Zealand eggs for breakfast.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II The British constitution has always been puzzling and always will be.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I have behind me not only the splendid traditions and the annals of more than a thousand years but t...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II To what greater inspiration and counsel can we turn than to the imperishable truth to be found in th...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II What were once only hopes for the future have now come to pass; it is almost exactly 13 years since ...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II First, I want to pay tribute to Diana myself. She was an exceptional and gifted human being. In good...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I cannot lead you into battle. I do not give you laws or administer justice but I can do something e...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II To all those who have suffered as a consequence of our troubled past I extend my sincere thoughts an...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II Grief is the price we pay for love.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II The upward course of a nation's history is due in the long run to the soundness of heart of its ...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II At its heart, engineering is about using science to find creative, practical solutions. It is a nobl...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II At Christmas, I am always struck by how the spirit of togetherness lies also at the heart of the Chr...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II For many, Christmas is also a time for coming together. But for others, service will come first.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II

More Yusef Komunyakaa

Through the years I have seen myself as a peaceful person, but the awareness of the anger is part of...
YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA I like what Oliver Lakes does on the saxophone. The saxophone comes pretty close to the sound of the...
YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA I see many black males grasping for some thread of hope. There are so many destructive practices, gl...
YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA It took me 14 years to write poems about Vietnam. I had never thought about writing about it, and in...
YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA I think of my poems as personal and public at the same time. You could say they serve as psychologic...
YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA I excavate history. I look at lives buried under too much silence. Periods of time, like slavery, ha...
YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA It wasn't a deliberate decision to become a poet. It was something I found myself doing - and lo...
YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA Students often have such a lofty idea of what a poem is, and I want them to realize that their own l...
YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA Poets are seen as the caretakers of language, so working with words no matter what the form is what ...
YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA Poetry helps me understand who I am. It helps me understand the world around me. But above all, what...
YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA My great-grandfather Melvin had been a carpenter - so was my father - and they taught me the value o...
YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA We have to embrace the good over the bad. That has to be one's personal project.
YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA Vietnam helped me to look at the horror and terror in the hearts of people and realize how we can...
YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA I like connecting the abstract to the concrete. There's a tension in that. I believe the reader ...
YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA I originally wanted to embrace the imagery and forthrightness of rap music. There are some interesti...
YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA I define poetry as celebration and confrontation. When we witness something, are we responsible for ...
YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA You can two-time satan
But you can't lick the Holy Ghost.
YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA See how forgiving - how brave nature is.
YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA I ate mythology & dreamt'
- Yusef Komunyakaa (Blackberries)
YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA We were The Hottentot Venus
Draped in our mothers' dresses,
Wearing rouge & lipstick,<...
YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA My music is jazz.
YUSEF LATEEF When the soul looks out of its body, it should see only beauty in its path. These are the sights we ...
YUSEF LATEEF Flowers, beautiful flowers, children, humanity, lovely, love, life, embrace all - please!
YUSEF LATEEF I went out on the field as a peacemaker and got pulled into it.
YUSEF KELLY