A Quote by Taylor Mali
A poem is the perfect place to celebrate imperfection and exult in the ways you fall short of being the person you want to be.
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Perfection isn't human. Human beings are not perfect. What evokes our love--and I mean love, not lust--is the imperfection of the human being. So, when the imperfection of the real person peaks through, say, 'This is a challenge to my compassion.' Then make a try, and something might begin to get going.
It has been said that a poem should not mean but be. This is not quite accurate. In a poem, as distinct from many other kinds of verbal societies, meaning and being are identical. A poem might be called a pseudo-person. Like a person, it is unique and addresses the reader personally. On the other hand, like a natural being and unlike a historical person, it cannot lie.
Being president is as difficult as writing the perfect poem. And being president is as effortless as writing the perfect poem. Always a Reckoning, my first collection of poetry, was described by Booklist as 'keenly evocative.'
The religion of the short poem, in every age and in every literature, has a single commandment: Less is always more. The short poem rejects preamble and summary. It's about all and everything, the metaphysics of a few words surrounded by much silence. …The short poem is a match flaring up in a dark universe.
Like a pianist runs her fingers over the keys, I'll search my mind for what to say. Now, the poem may want you to write it. And then sometimes you see a situation and think, 'I'd like to write about that.' Those are two different ways of being approached by a poem, or approaching a poem.
You must believe: a poem is a holy thing - a good poem, that is. The poem, even a short time after being written, seems no miracle; unwritten, it seems something beyond the capacity of the gods.
Mystics exult in mystery and want it to stay mysterious. Scientists exult in mystery for a different reason: It gives them something to do.
So long as there is desire or want, it is a sure sign that there is imperfection. A perfect, free being cannot have any desire.
I'm not perfect. And who knows how many times I've fallen short. We all fall short. That's the amazing thing about the grace of God.
Being a parent is such a difficult business; you don't always get things right. And also, you don't want to be a perfect parent... You need people to be human, and part of it is imperfection.
I love this world because it is imperfect. It is imperfect, and that's why it is growing; if it was perfect it would have been dead. Growth is possible only if there is imperfection. I would like you to remember again and again, I am imperfect, the whole universe is imperfect, and to love this imperfection, to rejoice in this imperfection is my whole message.
So many people are concerned with being the perfect 'something.' Whether it's the perfect singer, the perfect sexy girl, or the perfect feminist. I don't want to be the perfect anything.
I want to get up and celebrate something - and why not celebrate being a woman?
I can do short jobs. If I was still starring in three movies every year, there's no way that I'd be the person my kids want when they fall down.
Don't pointless things have a place, too, in this far-from-perfect world? Remove everything pointless from an imperfect life, and it'd lose even its imperfection.
What interests me so much about the characters of the Bible is that they make mistakes but God uses them anyway, in important ways. Nobody's perfect, but God can even use our imperfection.
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