The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads tagged with “poetry”

Working Together: Poet and Philosopher David Whyte’s Beautiful Ode to Our Mutuality with the World
Working Together: Poet and Philosopher David Whyte’s Beautiful Ode to Our Mutuality with the World

“We shape our self to fit this world and by the world are shaped again.”

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Polish Poet and Nobel Laureate Wisława Szymborska on the Creative Power of Uncertainty
Polish Poet and Nobel Laureate Wisława Szymborska on the Creative Power of Uncertainty

“Whatever inspiration is, it’s born from a continuous ‘I don’t know.’”

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Are You an Echo: The Remarkable Story of the Forgotten Young Woman Who Became Japan’s Most Beloved Children’s Poet
Are You an Echo: The Remarkable Story of the Forgotten Young Woman Who Became Japan’s Most Beloved Children’s Poet

A celebration of indiscriminate empathy and a sensitive reminder that the tragic and the transcendent can coexist.

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How to Know Everything About Everything: Laura Riding’s Extraordinary 1930 Letters to an 8-Year-Old Girl About Being Oneself
How to Know Everything About Everything: Laura Riding’s Extraordinary 1930 Letters to an 8-Year-Old Girl About Being Oneself

“People who for some reason find it impossible to think about themselves, and so really be themselves, try to make up for not thinking with doing.”

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Song of Two Worlds: Alan Lightman’s Poetic Ode to Science, the Unknown, and Our Search for Meaning, Illustrated by a Teenager in India
Song of Two Worlds: Alan Lightman’s Poetic Ode to Science, the Unknown, and Our Search for Meaning, Illustrated by a Teenager in India

“One thousand questions, and each gives an answer, which then forms a question.”

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Mathematician Lillian Lieber on Infinity, Art, Science, the Meaning of Freedom, and What It Takes to Be a Finite But Complete Human Being
Mathematician Lillian Lieber on Infinity, Art, Science, the Meaning of Freedom, and What It Takes to Be a Finite But Complete Human Being

Mathematics and poetry converge in an ode to the “sweet reasonableness” at the heart of a psychologically balanced character.

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This Is a Poem That Heals Fish: An Almost Unbearably Wonderful Picture-Book About How Poetry Works Its Magic
This Is a Poem That Heals Fish: An Almost Unbearably Wonderful Picture-Book About How Poetry Works Its Magic

“A poem … is when you are in love and have the sky in your mouth.”

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The Poetics of Protest and Prayer: Mary Ruefle on the Different Powers of the Voice Raised and the Voice Lowered
The Poetics of Protest and Prayer: Mary Ruefle on the Different Powers of the Voice Raised and the Voice Lowered

“Cries and whispers. A bang or a whimper. Whatever the case, if we want to be heard, we must raise our voice, or lower it.”

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Audre Lorde on the Indivisibility of Identity and the Importance of Arts Education and Arts Funding
Audre Lorde on the Indivisibility of Identity and the Importance of Arts Education and Arts Funding

“The shortest statement of philosophy I have is my living, or the word ‘I.’”

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May Sarton on the Artist’s Duty to Contact the Timeless in Tumultuous Times
May Sarton on the Artist’s Duty to Contact the Timeless in Tumultuous Times

“Now it has become impossible to guard one’s soul… We are forced to read the papers, and yet… our job is somehow or other to be above the mêlée, or so deeply in it that one comes through to something else, something universal and timeless.”

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