The muse, the beloved, and dense are three ways of thinking of what is the source of poetry, and all three seem to me different names or different ways to think about something that is not entirely reasonable, not entirely subject to the will, not entirely rational.

— Edward Hirsch

There are still many tribal cultures where poetry and song, there is just one word for them. There are other cultures with literacy where poetry and song are distinguished. But poetry always remembers that it has its origins in music.

— Edward Hirsch

There have always been great defenses of poetry, and I've tried to write mine, and I think all of my work and criticism is a defense of poetry to try and keep something alive in poetry.

— Edward Hirsch

There's never been a culture without poetry in the history of the world.

— Edward Hirsch

The sense of flowing, which is so crucial to song, is also crucial to poetry.

— Edward Hirsch

The terms of poetry - some simple, some complicated, some ancient, some new - should bring us closer to what we're hearing, enlarging our experience of it, enabling us to describe what we're reading, to feel and think with greater precision.

— Edward Hirsch

When I taught at the University of Houston in the Creative Writing program, we required the poets to take workshops in fiction writing, and we required the fiction writers to take workshops in poetry.

— Edward Hirsch

When poetry separates from song, then the words have to carry all the rhythm themselves; they have to do all the work. They can't rely on the singing voice.

— Edward Hirsch

Why did the sun rise this morning It's not natural don't want to see the light It's not time to close the casket Or say Kaddish for my son've already buried two fathers With a mother to come Isn't that enough Lord who wants unto exalt and sanctify Him don't want to wear the mourner's ribbon Or wake up crying every morning For God knows how long don't want to tuck my son into the grounds if we were putting him to Bedford the last time Close the prayer book I will not pretend That God brings peace upon sand upon all Israeli don't want to hear anyone Scolding me from her wheelchair Because I'm crying too hard'm not worried about a heart attackNothingnessYou've already broken my heart will not forgive Yousuf of emptiness Sky of blank clouds will not forgive you Indifferent God Until you give back my son

— Edward Hirsch

Works of art imitate and provoke other works of art, the process is the source of art itself.

— Edward Hirsch