“A poet is somebody who feels, and who expresses his feelings through words. This may sound easy. It isn’t. A lot of people think or believe or know they feel — but that’s thinking or believing or knowing; not feeling. And poetry is feeling — not knowing or believing or thinking. Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel. Why? Because whenever you think or you believe or you know, you’re a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you’re nobody-but-yourself. To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”
– E.E. Cummings
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“A thought on poetry from E.E. Cummings” sources: Photograph taken in 1953 – Albertin, Walter, photographer. E.E. Cummings, full-length portrait, facing left, wearing hat and coat / World-Telegram photo by Walter Albertin. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/95506981/> / Wikimedia Commons / “The Courage to Be Yourself: E.E. Cummings on Art, Life, and Being Unafraid to Feel.” The Marginalian.
