The Roar on the Other Side

"Poetry starts with silence - not silence in the world but silence of mind."

"To write you must learn quiet. This is hard, because the world we live in is loud."

"Noise, of course, is not a bad thing. But stillness needs a larger room than most of us give it. By making decisions to read a good book instead of watching TV or take a walk instead of playing a video game, you are enlarging this room. Writing poetry will add floor space and a skylight."

"There is more to seeing than observing details, which is what scientists do to gather information. They look to see what is there in order to make factual statements or predictions. But the poet's lens is more like a prism than a telescope; more like a kaleidoscope than a microscope. For the poet takes bare fact and clothes it with meaning. The poet hears the roar on the other side of silence."

The Roar on the Other Side - a guide for student poets
by Suzanne U. Clark