Word: sh
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...SH: If it can. It can’t change the world, but within the poem, things should be re-tuned at least. Maybe eventually, gradually, poems enter the consciousness of individuals, and then of a culture, and then has a general effect. But it’s on sensibility rather than politics...
...SH: It’s a subject I usually don’t talk about. There’s not much to say about it. I was in Greece at the time, and I didn’t learn about it for two days. I was able to hide for a couple of days and get myself ready. I’ve said it before about the Nobel Prize: it’s like being struck by a more or less benign avalanche. It was unexpected, unlooked for, and extraordinary...
...SH: I like to quote the great Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz: “What is poetry that does not save nations or people?” Most poets don’t really think about that. In a war situation or where violence and injustice are prevalent, poetry is called upon to be something more than a thing of beauty. So there was that feeling of responsibility...
...SH: I think they’re all unique. We have the beginnings of structure, of institution, which would allow the divisions to play out politically. But what is being played out in the institution is quite a dangerous energy on the streets. What you want, if possible, is some institutional shape that allows dangerous voltage to enter and work and drive the institution. It doesn’t mean that sectarianism or opposition has gone away in Northern Ireland; it means that there’s a kind of future-seeking possibility in the institution...
...SH: A person from Northern Ireland is naturally cautious. You grew up vigilant because it’s a divided society. My poetry on the whole was earth-hugging, but then I began to look up rather than keep down. I think it had to do with a sense that the marvelous was as permissible as the matter-of-fact in poetry. That line is from a poem called “The Gravel Walks,” which is about heavy work—wheeling barrows of gravel—but also the paradoxical sense of lightness when you?...