“Human life can be lived like a poem.”
Source: The Importance of Living (1937), p. 32
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Lin Yutang 67
Chinese writer 1895–1976Related quotes
“or that writing a poem you can read to no one
is like dancing in the dark.”
Source: The Poems of Exile: Tristia and the Black Sea Letters
of not wanting to write a preface for his first volume of verse, The Rage for the Lost Penny (1940); “A Note on Poetry”, p. 47
Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964 (1980)
“Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.”
"Trees" - This poem was first published in Poetry: A Magazine of Verse Vol. 2 (August 1913). The first two lines were first written down on the 2nd of February 1913.
Trees and Other Poems (1914)
Context: I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
“My life has been the poem I would have writ,
But I could not both live and utter it.”
My Life Has Been a Poem I Would Have Writ
A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/7cncd10.txt (1849), Friday
Variant translation:
Who says my poems are poems?
My poems are not poems.
After you know my poems are not poems,
Then we can begin to discuss poetry!
"Zen Poetics of Ryokan" in Simply Haiku: A Quarterly Journal of Japanese Short Form Poetry (Summer 2006) http://www.hermitary.com/articles/ryokan_poetics.html
Dewdrops on a Lotus Leaf : Zen Poems of Ryokan (1993)
“A poem is a living organism.”
The Poet's Poetic Responsibility (2012)