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How to Be a PoetBY WENDELL BERRY

(to remind myself)

i   Make a place to sit down.   Sit down. Be quiet.   You must depend upon   affection, reading, knowledge,   skill—more of each   than you have—inspiration,   work, growing older, patience,   for patience joins time   to eternity. Any readers   who like your poems,   doubt their judgment.   ii   Breathe with unconditional breath   the unconditioned air.   Shun electric wire.   Communicate slowly. Live   a three-dimensioned life;   stay away from screens.   Stay away from anything   that obscures the place it is in.   There are no unsacred places;   there are only sacred places   and desecrated places.   iii   Accept what comes from silence.   Make the best you can of it.   Of the little words that come   out of the silence, like prayers   prayed back to the one who prays,   make a poem that does not disturb   the silence from which it came.

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