struck by a chisel or ax

All edifices of art need to be built upon thought’s solid foundation.

If it’s not a poem, no matter what form it’s in, it’s not a poem.

Deep eclectic thought, rendered through easily apprehended language, creates poetry of the highest order.

I live: I sing.

It’s natural that poets thirst for some kind of a constitution: In addition to ensuring the people’s daily bread as well as their well-being, a country must safeguard its art from destruction.

If, while writing, your work feels forced, when it is read by others, it will feel even more forced.

What are the secrets for writing poetry?
—With naïve and honest eyes, look at the world, and convey what you comprehend and what you feel through the simplest forms of language.

The beauty inherent in poetry is the luminance of humanity’s upward-striving spirit expressed entirely through the poet’s passion. This kind of luminance not only glitters and splashes like embers from a fire in darkness, but also shoots out like sparks from a rock struck by a chisel or ax.

—Ai Qing, “Excerpts from the Notebooks,” Selected Poems (Crown, 2021), translated by Robert Dorsett

[n.b.: Ai Qing was the father of the artist Ai Weiwei. Ai Qing was a poet and dissident imprisoned for resisting the totalitarian regime in China.]