“I long for poems of an inner harmony in utter contrast to the chaos in which they exist.”

— Denise Levertov

Statement on poetics in The New American Poetry (1960) edited by Donald Allen
Context: I long for poems of an inner harmony in utter contrast to the chaos in which they exist. Insofar as poetry has a social function it is to awaken sleepers by other means than shock.

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Denise Levertov49

Poet 1923–1997

John Hollander (1929–2013) American poet

introduction-John Hollander ed.'Committed to Memory' Riverhead Books New York 1996

“I believe the common denominator of the Universe is not harmony, but chaos, hostility and murder.”

Werner Herzog (1942) German film director, producer, screenwriter, actor and opera director

"Grizzly Man" (2006)

“To create a harmonious inner existence is a positive act with far-reaching effects, and not an act of isolation. To desire peace strongly is to help achieve it.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Session 337, Page 16
The Early Sessions: Sessions 1-42, 1997, The Early Sessions: Book 8

“There neither exists nor can exist any work more thoroughly dignified — more supremely noble than this very poem — this poem per se — this poem which is a poem and nothing more — this poem written solely for the poem's sake.”

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) American author, poet, editor and literary critic

The Poetic Principle (1850)

“There is a vivid contrast between the order of China and the chaos of the West.”

Xi Jinping (1953) General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and paramount leader of China

Source: As quoted in The East Is Rising': Xi Maps Out China’s Post-Covid Ascent https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/03/world/asia/xi-china-congress.html The New York Times

“My life has been the poem I would have writ,
But I could not both live and utter it.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

My Life Has Been a Poem I Would Have Writ <br class="br"> A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/7cncd10.txt (1849), Friday