"Poetry began when somebody walked off a savanna or out of a cave and looked up at the sky with wonder and said, "Ah-h-h!" That was the first poem. The urge towards "Ah-h-h!" is very human, it's in everybody. People express it in different ways, and I think the world is beginning to recognize that the urge in themselves is also poetry. Unfortunately, we've been taught that only certain things are poetry.
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"... You cannot play for safety and make art. You have to get past your own fear. It's all right to be afraid, but if you draw back from what frightens you, then you may as well stop writing because, in a way, everything is frightening. Every morning you wake up to the unexpected, to what might kill you, but you have to do it anyway. Once you decide, "I will see clearly, I will speak clearly, I will say what I see, then you have to do it all."
-- Lucille Clifton, speaking to Bill Moyers in The Language of Life: A Festival of Poets. The book had a corresponding eight-part television series, some of which you can view here. See also the riches in the "pure poetry" collection of "Moyers & Company"
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