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Alison Hedlund

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Alison is Currently Reading

Alison Hedlund rated a book it was amazing

The Vision of the Good (Christina, #2)

by Bernadette von Dreien

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Mar 23, 2026 04:10PM

Alison Hedlund is currently reading

A Poet's Glossary

by Edward Hirsch

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Oct 02, 2021 02:25PM

Alison Hedlund is currently reading

How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry

by Edward Hirsch

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Oct 02, 2021 02:25PM

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Alison’s Quotes

“For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning."

(Little Gidding)”
― T.S. Eliot

tags: new-beginnings, new-year, new-year-s-day

822 likes

“The rose has told
In one simplicity
That never life
Relinquishes a bloom
But to bestow
An ancient confidence.”
― Nathalia Crane, Venus Invisible and Other Poems

tags: bloom, confidence, letting-go, life, roses

59 likes

“You cannot choose your battlefield,
God does that for you;
But you can plant a standard
Where a standard never flew.

(From The Colors)”
― Nathalia Crane, The Singing Crow And Other Poems

tags: battle, war

18 likes

“Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.”
― Henry David Thoreau

tags: morality, usefulness

1722 likes

“Philosophers have long conceded, however, that every man has two educators: 'that which is given to him, and the other that which he gives himself. Of the two kinds the latter is by far the more desirable. Indeed all that is most worthy in man he must work out and conquer for himself. It is that which constitutes our real and best nourishment. What we are merely taught seldom nourishes the mind like that which we teach ourselves.”
― Carter G. Woodson, The Mis-Education of the Negro

tags: education

97 likes

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Alison’s Groups

¡ POETRY ! — 22521 members — last activity May 24, 2026 04:09PM
No pretensions: just poetry. Stop by, recommend books, offer up poems (excerpted), tempt us, taunt us, tell us what to read and where to go (to read No pretensions: just poetry. Stop by, recommend books, offer up poems (excerpted), tempt us, taunt us, tell us what to read and where to go (to read it!) Goodreads honors wordsmiths: poets and poetry promoted and prompted here. ~~~ "Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits." -- Carl Sandburg “God has a brown voice, as soft and full as beer.” —Anne Sexton On Clouds – “…what primitive tastes the ancients must have had if their poets were inspired by those absurd, untidy clumps of mist, idiotically jostling one another about…” —Yevgeny Zamyatin “If the poet wants to be a poet, the poet must force the poet to revise. If the poet doesn’t wish to revise, let the poet abandon poetry and take up stamp-collecting or real estate.” —Donald Hall “Poetry is a rich, full-bodied whistle, cracked ice crunching in pails, the night that numbs the leaf, the duel of two nightingales, the sweet pea that has run wild, Creation’s tears in shoulder blades.” —Boris Pasternak “Wanted: a needle swift enough to sew this poem into a blanket.” —Charles Simic “Language is a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity.” —Gustave Flaubert “Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It’s that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that’s what the poet does.” —Allen Ginsberg. ~~~~~ Amy King, Moderator Amy King is the recipient of the 2015 Winner of the WNBA Award (Women’s National Book Association). Her latest collection, The Missing Museum, is a winner of the 2015 Tarpaulin Sky Book Prize. She serves on the executive board of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts and is co-editing with Heidi Lynn Staples the anthology, Big Energy Poets of the Anthropocene: When Ecopoets Think Climate Change. She is also co-editing the anthology, Bettering American Poetry 2015, and is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at SUNY Nassau Community College. ...more