“It should be of the pleasure of a poem itself to tell how it can. The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight and ends in wisdom. The figure is the same as for love. No one can really hold that the ecstasy should be static and stand still in one place. It begins in delight, it inclines to the impulse, it assumes direction with the first line laid down, it runs a course of lucky events, and ends in a clarification of life-not necessarily a great clarification, such as sects and cults are founded on, but in a momentary stay against confusion. It has denouement. It has an outcome that though unforeseen was predestined from the first image of the original mood-and indeed from the very mood.”

— Robert Frost

The portion of "The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight and ends in wisdom." is often misquoted as: Poetry begins in delight and ends in wisdom.
The Figure a Poem Makes (1939)
Context: It should be of the pleasure of a poem itself to tell how it can. The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight and ends in wisdom. The figure is the same as for love. No one can really hold that the ecstasy should be static and stand still in one place. It begins in delight, it inclines to the impulse, it assumes direction with the first line laid down, it runs a course of lucky events, and ends in a clarification of life-not necessarily a great clarification, such as sects and cults are founded on, but in a momentary stay against confusion. It has denouement. It has an outcome that though unforeseen was predestined from the first image of the original mood-and indeed from the very mood. It is but a trick poem and no poem at all if the best of it was thought of first and saved for the last. It finds its own name as it goes and discovers the best waiting for it in some final phrase at once wise and sad-the happy-sad blend of the drinking song.

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Robert Frost 265

American poet 1874–1963

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“It begins in delight and ends in wisdom. The figure is the same for love.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

The Figure a Poem Makes (1939)
Variant: A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.
Context: It should be of the pleasure of a poem itself to tell how it can. The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight and ends in wisdom. The figure is the same for love.

“A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

“Books should to one of these four ends conduce,
For wisdom, piety, delight, or use.”

John Denham (1615–1669) English poet and courtier

Of Prudence (1668), line 83.

“Relationships are good
for at least two poems—
One at the beginning
and one at the end.”

Sheri-D Wilson (1958) Canadian Spoken Word Poet

"On Being a Poet"
Swerve (1993)

“What happens at the beginning of your poem has to—because it’s a poem—be transformed by the end of your poem. So if the triggering moment for the beginning of your poem is a known political moment, I am fine with that, that’s great. But as I’m reading, I expect it to change because that was just the trigger…”

Jericho Brown (1976) American writer

On how poems might be structured around a political theme in “JERICHO BROWN in conversation with MICHAEL DUMANIS” http://www.benningtonreview.org/jericho-brown-interview in Bennington Review (2018 Oct 27)

“A story should have a beginning, a middle and an end, but not necessarily in that order.”

Jean-Luc Godard (1930) French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic

Variant: A story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end... but not necessarily in that order.

“I say, life and figure are distinct attributes of one substance, and as one and the same body may be transmuted into all kinds of figures; and as the perfecter figure comprehends that which is more imperfect; so one and the same body may be transmuted from one degree of life to another more perfect, which always comprehends in it the inferior. We have an example of figure in a triangular prism, which is the first figure of all right lined solid triangular prism, which is the first figure of all right lined solid bodies, where into a body is convertible; and from this into a cube, which is a perfecter figure, and comprehends in it a prism; from a cube it may be turned into a more perfect figure, which comes nearer to a globe, and from this into another, which is yet nearer; and so it ascends from one figure, more imperfect to another more perfect, ad infinitum; for here are no bounds; nor can it be said, this body cannot be changed into a perfecter figure: But the meaning is that that body consists of plane right lines; and this is always chageablee into a perfecter figure, and yet can never reach to the perfection of a globe, although it always approaches nearer unto it; the case is the same in diverse degrees of life, which have indeed a beginning, but no end; so that the creature is always capable of a farther and perfecter degree of life, ad infinitum, and yet can never attain to be equal with God; for he is still infinitely more perfect than a creature, in its highest elevation or perfection, even as a globe is the most perfect of all other figures, unto which none can approach.”

Anne Conway (1631–1679) British philosopher

The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy (1690)

“The beginning of it is the ending of it. If you know how to read, supreme wisdom is to be found.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

"Fifth Talk in The Oak Grove, 11 June 1944" http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/view-text.php?tid=173&chid=4529&w=%22To+understand+oneself+requires+patience%22&s=Text, J. Krishnamurti Online, JKO Serial No. 440611, Vol. III, p. 219
Posthumous publications, The Collected Works
Context: To understand oneself requires patience, tolerant awareness; the self is a book of many volumes which you cannot read in a day, but when once you begin to read, you must read every word, every sentence, every paragraph for in them are the intimations of the whole. The beginning of it is the ending of it. If you know how to read, supreme wisdom is to be found.

“Life doesn't have a neat beginning and a tidy end, life is always going on. You should begin in the middle and end in the middle, and it should be all there.”

V.S. Naipaul book Half a Life

Half a Life (2001)

“I am often inclined to put the implementation questions first, ie, "Can anything be changed?" Should the implementation question not accompany the whole process from its very beginning to its very end?”

C. West Churchman (1913–2004) American philosopher and systems scientist

C. West Churchman (1979, p. 21) as cited in: Interfaces (1982) Vol 12, p. 12
1980s and later

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