I learned from Whitman that the poem is a temple -- or a green field -- a place to enter, and in which to feel. Only in a secondary way is it an intellectual thing -- an artifact, a moment of seemly and robust wordiness --wonderful as that part of it is. I learned that the poem was made not just to exist, but to speak --to be company. It was everything that was needed, when everything was needed. . Mary Oliver
About This Quote

This quote from Walt Whitman is a reminder that the poem is more than just words on a page. It is more than just a piece of art. A poem is not just some kind of luxury item that we read and then put away. It is something that we should use and preserve, and even sometimes live in. We should live with it and learn from it every day, because the poem is not just for reading.

Source: Upstream: Selected Essays

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More Quotes By Mary Oliver
  1. Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.

  2. Why I Wake Early Hello, sun in my face. Hello, you who made the morningand spread it over the fieldsand into the faces of the tulipsand the nodding morning glories, and into the windows of, even, themiserable and the crotchety — best preacher that ever...

  3. You must not ever stop being whimsical. And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life.

  4. When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. When it is over, I don't want to wonderif I have made of my life something particular, and...

  5. To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.

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