“I love the leisurely amplitude, the spaciousness, of taking a walk, of heading somewhere, anywhere, on foot. I love the sheer adventure of it, of setting out and taking off. You cross a threshold and you’re on your way. Time is suspended. …the rhythm and pace of a walk — the physical activity — can get you going and keep you grounded. It’s a kind of light meditation. … walking seems to bring a different sort of alertness, an associative kind of thinking, a drifting state of mind.
“A walk is a way of entering the body, and also of leaving it. I am both here and there, betwixt and between, strolling along, observing things, thinking of something else. I move in a liminal space. … walking often quickens my thoughts, inducing a flow of ideas.”
— from Edward Hirsch, “ ‘My Pace Provokes My Thoughts’: Poetry and Walking,” The American Poetry Review, March/April 2011
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These are precisely my own sentiments. I could have not put it better.
— Roger W. Smith
October 2017
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Edward Hirsch, a poet and author, is president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
The words “my pace provokes my thoughts” are from the French poet and essayist Paul Valéry.
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See also my posts
“on walking (and exercise)”
https://rogersgleanings.com/2017/09/26/on-walking-and-exercise/
and
“Manhattan Island from Bottom to Top; Walking as Exercise”