Jorge Luis Borges "Poets Creed"

- One reads what one likes, and one writes, not what one would like, but what one is able to write.

- In reading we seem to have the ability to transcend and to stretch beyond ourselves. In writing it seems that we are limited by our own talents, and experiences.

- Borges remembers back to his father's library and recalls stories not by there actual content, but how they made him feel.

- One of Borges definitions of humanity is that to be human is to live in the past and the future, to know a time before one is born, and a time that occurs after ones death.

- Another definition of humanity seems to be able to see yourself, face to face, and know. Perhaps an ecstatic truth, one that gives illumination?

- As a poet, Borges favors being the reader. It seems easier and in my opinion it is. The writing part, and which is a part of Borges Creed is that writing is troublesome and painful.

- "I suppose young men are found of unhappiness, they do their best to be unhappy, and they generally achieve it." A great quote, and it is very clear inside this classroom.

- In poetry everything is feeling.

- To repeat the last two lines of a play or poem, gives the second repeated line more weight. There is a thickening of meaning.

- The mistake that free verse is easier than structure. When, structure actually frees you by making your job easier. You just plug in your ideas into a form. In free verse you must construct everything from scratch.

- The art of hiding and writing as others do, pretending to write in an old "style"

- Borges finds that we are all contemporary. Because, we all exist now. You cannot get away from it.

- "What does being a writer mean to me? It means being true to my imagination."

- Stories as dreams or ideas, not factual re-accounts. Facts are just a web of accidents and circumstances.

- Be loyal to the dream not the circumstance.

- Poetry can harbor laziness, or idle writers. It's easier to hint at something than to write a novel about it.

- Finally he state that he has not real creed and that he only has a few precautions and misgivings.