Glyn Maxwell > Quotes

“Sundays, like a stanza break
Or shower's end of all applause,
For some old unexplaining sake
The optimistic tread these shores,
As lonely as the dead awake
Or God among the dinosaurs.”
― Glyn Maxwell, The Boys at Twilight: Poems, 1990-1995

“Everything is someone. Colours, cutlery, capital letters. A's complacent, B indignant, C tricky, D worthy, I can't help this, never could. The hot tap thinks the cold two's common, the cold tap thinks the hot tap's precious. I back out of my small bathroom peacemaking - you're both right for pete's sake - my fingers are clannish brothers with a secret, my toes a mum and her babies, my slippers hush me: pipe down they're trying to sleep, and yet the void's a void? Perhaps that's all humans do, fill the space with folks to meet... my own heart let me have more pity on...”
― Glyn Maxwell, Drinks with Dead Poets: The Autumn Term

“The other half of everything for the songwriters is music. For the poets it’s silence, the space, the whiteness. Music for them – and silence for us – does the work of time. I think our gig is harder. Their enemy reaches out, plays chords, goes hey we could be friends if you play your cards right. Our enemy simply waits, like it knows the arts of war. Songs are strung upon sounds, poems upon silence. Songwriters stir up a living tradition, poets make flowers grow in air. Bob Dylan and John Keats are at different work. It would be nice never to be asked about this again. *”
― Glyn Maxwell, On Poetry