“Writers don’t write from experience….”

“Writers don’t write from experience, although many are hesitant to admit that they don’t. …If you wrote from experience, you’d get maybe one book, maybe three poems. Writers write from empathy.”

― Nikki Giovanni

(quote found at Goodreads)

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Mothers

BY NIKKI GIOVANNI

the last time i was home

to see my mother we kissed

exchanged pleasantries

and unpleasantries pulled a warm

–

Read rest of poem at The Poetry Foundation

“A poet is someone who stands outside in the rain….”

Cherrylog Road

BY JAMES L. DICKEY

Off Highway 106

At Cherrylog Road I entered

The ’34 Ford without wheels,

Smothered in kudzu,

With a seat pulled out to run

Corn whiskey down from the hills,

–

Read rest of poem at The Poetry Foundation 

From “Letters to a Young Poet” by Rainer Maria Rilke

Mahmoud Darwish’s “To a Young Poet”

To a Young Poet

BY MAHMOUD DARWISH

TRANSLATED BY FADY JOUDAH

Don’t believe our outlines, forget them

and begin from your own words.

As if you are the first to write poetry

or the last poet.

–

If you read our work, let it not be an extension of our airs,

but to correct our errs

in the book of agony.

–

Don’t ask anyone: Who am I?

You know who your mother is.

As for your father, be your own.

–

Read the rest of this poem at The Poetry Foundation