“Poetry is not a healing lotion, an emotional massage, a kind of linguistic aromatherapy. Neither is it a blueprint, nor an instruction manual, nor a billboard. There is no universal Poetry, anyway, only poetries and poetics, and the streaming, intertwining histories to which they belong.”

"Legislators of the world" in The Guardian (18 November 2006) http://books.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1950812,00.html
Context: I'm both a poet and one of the "everybodies" of my country. I live with manipulated fear, ignorance, cultural confusion and social antagonism huddling together on the faultline of an empire. I hope never to idealise poetry — it has suffered enough from that. Poetry is not a healing lotion, an emotional massage, a kind of linguistic aromatherapy. Neither is it a blueprint, nor an instruction manual, nor a billboard. There is no universal Poetry, anyway, only poetries and poetics, and the streaming, intertwining histories to which they belong. There is room, indeed necessity, for both Neruda and César Valléjo, for Pier Paolo Pasolini and Alfonsina Storni, for both Ezra Pound and Nelly Sachs. Poetries are no more pure and simple than human histories are pure and simple. And there are colonised poetics and resilient poetics, transmissions across frontiers not easily traced.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Poetry is not a healing lotion, an emotional massage, a kind of linguistic aromatherapy. Neither is it a blueprint, nor…" by Adrienne Rich?
Adrienne Rich photo
Adrienne Rich 51
American poet, essayist and feminist 1929–2012

Related quotes

Aristotle photo
Florence Earle Coates photo

“Poetry belongs to the real things—to the realm of the ideal which is "the only real."”

Florence Earle Coates (1850–1927) American writer and poet

On poetry

Gertrude Stein photo
G. K. Chesterton photo

“The one stream of poetry which is continually flowing is slang.”

"A Defence of Slang"
The Defendant (1901)

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel photo

“The romantic poetry is a progressive universal poetry.”

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829) German poet, critic and scholar

Die romantische Poesie ist eine progressive Universalpoesie.
Progressive Universalpoesie (1798); in the German language, particularly in the Romantic schools, "Poesie" means both poetry as genre and faculty and the source of creativity to form poetry.

Craig Ferguson photo

“Lyric poetry is a kind of poetry that's literally musical.”

Jan Zwicky (1955) Canadian philosopher

The Details interview with Jay Ruzesky (Winter 2008)

Adrienne Rich photo

“Poetries are no more pure and simple than human histories are pure and simple. And there are colonised poetics and resilient poetics, transmissions across frontiers not easily traced.”

Adrienne Rich (1929–2012) American poet, essayist and feminist

"Legislators of the world" in The Guardian (18 November 2006) http://books.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1950812,00.html
Context: I'm both a poet and one of the "everybodies" of my country. I live with manipulated fear, ignorance, cultural confusion and social antagonism huddling together on the faultline of an empire. I hope never to idealise poetry — it has suffered enough from that. Poetry is not a healing lotion, an emotional massage, a kind of linguistic aromatherapy. Neither is it a blueprint, nor an instruction manual, nor a billboard. There is no universal Poetry, anyway, only poetries and poetics, and the streaming, intertwining histories to which they belong. There is room, indeed necessity, for both Neruda and César Valléjo, for Pier Paolo Pasolini and Alfonsina Storni, for both Ezra Pound and Nelly Sachs. Poetries are no more pure and simple than human histories are pure and simple. And there are colonised poetics and resilient poetics, transmissions across frontiers not easily traced.

Novalis photo

“Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason.”

Novalis (1772–1801) German poet and writer

As quoted in Quote, Unquote‎ (1989) by Jonathan Williams, p. 136

Related topics