Where Poetry Comes From
"I think poetry always comes out of what you don't know. And with students I say, knowledge is very important. Learn languages. Read history. Read, listen, above all, listen to everybody. Listen to everything that you hear. Every sound in the street. Every bird and every dog and everything that you hear. But know all of your knowledge is important, but your knowledge will never make anything. It will help you to form the things, but what makes something is something that you will never know. It comes out of you. It's who you are." Pulitzer Prize winning poet W.S. Merwin reflects with Bill Moyers on language, his writing process, the natural world, and the insights gleaned from a much-lauded career of more than 50 years.
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