"I have learned so much from working with other poets, travelling and reading with them, spending days discussing poems in progress. There is the sense that we are all, as writers, part of something which is more powerful than any of us"
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Dunmore frames the poet’s life as apprenticeship-by-osmosis: not the lone genius at a desk, but a craft learned in transit, in rooms where drafts are still tender and conversation becomes a kind of workshop. The sentence is built on accumulating verbs - working, travelling, reading, spending - a rhythm of participation that quietly rebukes the romantic myth of solitary inspiration. Her intent isn’t to sentimentalize community; it’s to describe the practical ecology that makes poems possible. You don’t just “write” among other poets, you metabolize their habits of attention.
The subtext is humility with a backbone. “I have learned so much” signals a willingness to be shaped, but it also asserts that the shaping matters: literature is a shared practice, and shared practices have standards. When she describes “days discussing poems in progress,” she’s pointing to the vulnerable middle state of art, before polish and publication. That’s where influence is most intimate - where a question, a disagreement, or even a laugh can change the line breaks.
Her final turn - “part of something which is more powerful than any of us” - reads like a secular credo. The “something” is tradition, language, and the ongoing collective project of making meaning under pressure. Coming from a poet who moved between lyric tenderness and historical darkness, it carries a quiet ethical charge: poetry isn’t just personal expression, it’s participation in a force that outlives careers, egos, and even lifetimes.
The subtext is humility with a backbone. “I have learned so much” signals a willingness to be shaped, but it also asserts that the shaping matters: literature is a shared practice, and shared practices have standards. When she describes “days discussing poems in progress,” she’s pointing to the vulnerable middle state of art, before polish and publication. That’s where influence is most intimate - where a question, a disagreement, or even a laugh can change the line breaks.
Her final turn - “part of something which is more powerful than any of us” - reads like a secular credo. The “something” is tradition, language, and the ongoing collective project of making meaning under pressure. Coming from a poet who moved between lyric tenderness and historical darkness, it carries a quiet ethical charge: poetry isn’t just personal expression, it’s participation in a force that outlives careers, egos, and even lifetimes.
Quote Details
| Topic | Poetry |
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