• Teaching a Stone to Talk

    Wherever there is stillness there is the still small voice, nature’s old song and dance … A meditation on silence and other matters. (From 1981)

    A grainy, hazy photograph of the Black Sea and Abrau Peninsula
    Nanna Heitmann / Magnum
  • The Three Voices of Poetry

    “The first is the voice of the poet talking to himself—or to nobody. The second is the voice of the poet addressing an audience, whether large or small. The third is the voice of the poet when he attempts to create a dramatic character speaking in verse.” (From 1954)

    Three pale, parallel rectangles on a blurry background of greens
    Illustration by The Atlantic. Source: Getty.

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