Mary Mccarthy

“How to be a Poet

(to remind myself)

i

Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill—more of each
than you have—inspiration
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity…

ii

Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensional life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.

iii

Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.”
― Wendell Berry, Given

“When she shall die, take her, and cut her in little stars, and she will make the face of heaven so fine, that the world will be in love with night, and pay no worship to the garish sun”
― Shakespeare

“The artist's job is not to succumb to despair but to find an antidote for the emptiness of existence.”
― Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris: The Shooting Script

“I have coveted everything and taken pleasure in nothing”
― Guy de Maupassant