Poetry is a search for the inexplicable.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Poetry seeks to explore things that cannot be fully explained or understood.
- In plain terms
- Poetry looks for mysteries that language cannot solve.
- What can you take from it?
- Use poetry to explore what remains unknown.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- What cannot you explain?
- Why do you write?
Another view
Not all inexplicable things are suitable for poetry.
More from Wallace Stevens
The world is a force not a presence.
Permalink to quote #216 Stevens' way of informing us comes in language and imagery so radically different from previous times that it is difficult to recognize exactly what he means. …
Permalink to quote #218 God is in me or else is not at all (does not exist).
Permalink to quote #215
Related quotes
Oh, my Lolita, I have only words to play with!
Vladimir NabokovVladimir Nabokov quote #13 'How divine is utterance!' she said. 'As we to the brutes, poets are to us.'
George MeredithGeorge Meredith quote #44 Poetry is simply the most beautiful, impressive and wisely effective mode of saying things, and hence its importance.
Matthew ArnoldMatthew Arnold quote #83