“Poetry is often the art of overhearing yourself say things you didn’t know you knew. It is a learned skill to force yourself to articulate your life, your present world or your possibilities for the future. We need that same skill as an art of survival. We need to overhear the tiny but very consequential things we say that reveal ourselves to ourselves.”
– Irish poet David Whyte

Novelist Paul Lynch said something similar in his PBS interview, which I quoted a few weeks ago, about the difficulty of listening to ourselves in the modern world, shaped by the noise of technology. I think the Irish writers are on to something!

How can you make time in your day to quiet yourself enough to hear your own voice?

(Painting: In the Clearwater Valley, by Leslie Budewitz; pastel on suedeboard)