A Quote by William Stafford
Everyone is born a poet - a person discovering the way words sound and work, caring and delighting in words. I just kept on doing what everyone starts out doing. The real question is: Why did other people stop?
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I just kept on doing what everyone starts out doing. The real question is, why did other people stop?
My question is "when did other people give up the idea of being a poet?" You know, when we are kids we make up things, we write, and for me the puzzle is not that some people are still writing, the real question is why did the other people stop?
If I knew what I was doing, I'd be doing it right now. I would be the best damn poet, silver words out of my mouth. My words might not be magic, but they cut straight to the truth. So if you need a lover and a friend, baby, I'm in.
Pretty much everyone's career starts the same way: with grunt work. Not just the cliched fetching of coffee, but other lowly tasks: taking notes in meetings, preparing paperwork, scheduling, intensive research - even flat-out doing our bosses' work for them.
When I'm performing, the crowd just disappears, it's like everyone merges - one big person. You just say the words and people will say the words back to you. And it's just so rehearsed. I have a lot of songs I couldn't forget the words if I tried. So you get in there, you lose yourself and it's all good.
No matter how perfect & honest a person is, there will always be people to criticize. In other words, if everyone agrees with someone, there is something fundamentally wrong with what that individual is doing. If you are not criticized, you are not in the right track.
The poet is a specialist in something which everyone practises. Herein, poetry differs from the other arts. Everyone does not practise music or painting or even dancing, but everyone without exception puts together words poetically every day of his life.
Why am I doing the work I'm doing? Why am I friends with this person? Am I living the best life I possibly can? Questions are often looked upon as questions of doubt but I don't see it that way at all. I question things to stay present, to make sure I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing.
Let's find out what everyone is doing, And then stop everyone from doing it.
The best way to conduct research on a larger scale is to make sure everyone knows what everyone else is doing... The sooner the better - start talking to other people about what you're doing. Because that's what will stimulate things the fastest.
I found ways to maintain my performance through working with professionals and doing things that other people weren't doing. Later in my career, I had a great physical therapist who kept me out on the track. We were doing innovative things like ice baths back in the early '80s when everyone else thought it was crazy.
It doesn't matter if you and everyone else in the room are thinking it. You don't say the words. Words are weapons. They blast big bloody holes in the world. And words are bricks. Say something out loud and it starts turning solid. Say it loud enough and it becomes a wall you can't get through.
If you're doing six takes, instead of doing six variations on the same words, why not just throw out the words and make them up as you go along, if you're comfortable with it? It gives the movies a slightly rangier feeling, and more of an accidental feel, but it also makes them edgier.
It still amazes me that everyone is so crazy about what we are doing. Maybe I am just dreaming but people seem to really freak out at what we are doing. I don't know why.
What's cool about Matador is that everyone I've met there is just so chill and really into what they're doing. Everyone that works there, there's just such a lack of ego, and there's such a commitment to what they're doing. They all like each other.
A lot of people think they can write poetry, and many do, because they can figure out how to line up the words or make certain sounds rhyme or just imitate the other poets they've read. But this boy, he's the real poet, because when he tries to put on paper what he's seen with his heart, he will believe deep down that there are no good words for it, no words can do it, and at that moment he will have begun to write poetry.
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