Napa craft lecture, Galway Kinnell and Tess Gallagher, The music of poetry, journal

The rhythm allows a poem to breathe effortlessly, things that seemed impossible before you start writing, to be out of reach, become within reach. Writing is not the last ornamentation, but a part of the poem itself. The music of the poem is the poem. All of life is based on cycles, the becoming and the dying. The rhythm is the first expression of life. To attach to that rhythm, that’s what art does for us, it’s the music first, then the poetry. 

9/1/83 freewrite from a craft lecture with Tess Gallagher and Galway Kinnell