If we were in the habit of reading poets their obscurity would not matter; and, once we are out of the habit, their clarity does not help.
Randall Jarrell Carolinian
Source
“The Obscurity of the Poet”, p. 4
- work
- Poetry and the Age (1953)
- year
- 1953
- locator
- p. 4
Cite this record
“If we were in the habit of reading poets their obscurity wou…” Randall Jarrell. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-FB8A829D5D. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/fb8a829d5d
More from Randall Jarrell
What we are most anxious about is our anxiety itself: the greatest of all sins, Auden learns from Kafka, is impatience — and he decides that the hero “is, in fact, one who is not anxious.” But it was inevitable that Auden should arrive at this point. His anxiety is fundamental; and the one thing that anxiety cannot do is to accept itself, to do nothing about itself — consequently it admires more than anything else in the world doing nothing, sitting still, waiting.
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