“Poker Face,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 38″ x 58″ image, 50″ x 70″ framed

* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.

… wise writers decline to engage in debates over the right way to read their words.  T.S. Eliot was once approached with a question about a cryptic line from his poem “Ash-Wednesday”: “Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper-tree.”  What did the line mean?  The poet replied:  “I mean, ‘Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper-tree .”  Creating a text, Eliot  seems to be saying, like having a child, only means bringing something into the world.  It doesn’t include the power to control it’s destiny.

Adam Kirsch in “Can You Read a Book the Wrong Way?”, The New York Times Book Review, Sept. 27, 2016.    

Comments are welcome!