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About this quote

What does it mean?
Words and stories give soldiers meaning and courage during war.
In plain terms
Poetry helps soldiers cope with war.
What can you take from it?
Use stories to find meaning in hardship.

Where it applies

  • military life
  • writing
  • historical study

Putting it to work

  • writing memoirs
  • motivational speaking
  • therapy

Questions to consider

  • Can words save a life?
  • Why do we tell war stories?

Another view

It may romanticize war by focusing on heroic language.

More from Wallace Stevens

  1. Soldier, there is a war between the mind And sky, between thought and day and night. It is For that the poet is always in the sun, Patches the moon together in…

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  2. That's what misery is, Nothing to have at heart. It is to have or nothing. It is a thing to have, A lion, an ox in his breast, To feel it breathing there. Cora…

    Permalink to quote #176
  3. They will get it straight one day at the Sorbonne. We shall return at twilight from the lecture Pleased that the irrational is rational, Until flicked by feeli…

    Permalink to quote #173

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