How to enrich your everyday life with poetry (with Sarah Kay)
How to Be a Better Human
TED
4.1 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 29 November 2021
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Roses are red, violets are blue, has poetry ever been intimidating for you? For many people, this art form can feel unapproachable for a myriad of reasons, but today’s guest, poet and educator Sarah Kay, suggests that people who don’t like poetry just maybe haven’t found a poem that really speaks to them. In this episode, Sarah proposes a fresh approach to this ancient art, talks about why playing with language can help you get in touch with yourself, and discusses the ways that writing and art help us form deeper, meaningful connections with others. Plus, she shares helpful, fun, and low-stakes writing exercises that might encourage you to put pen to paper. Read Sarah’s poetry and more at kaysarahsera.com To learn more about "How to Be a Better Human," host Chris Duffy, or find footnotes and additional resources, please visit: go.ted.com/betterhuman
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Ted Audio Collective. |
| 0:02.0 | Audio Collective. |
| 0:04.0 | You're listening to How to Bea Better Human. |
| 0:09.0 | You're listening to How to Be a Better Human. |
| 0:11.0 | I'm your host Chris Duffy. On today's episode our guest is one of my |
| 0:14.4 | favorite people in the world and one of my favorite artists, the poet Sarah Keg. At home on my desk |
| 0:20.6 | I have a couple little sheets of paper taped up to remind me of the kind of work that I want to be doing in my life. |
| 0:25.6 | And one of those lists is a list of artists whose work inspires me. |
| 0:30.0 | Sarah's name features very prominently. I love the way that Sarah plays with language. |
| 0:36.4 | I love her sense of humor and I also always moved and inspired by her vulnerability and her |
| 0:42.4 | openness in her work. That's something |
| 0:44.4 | that I really try and emulate and I aspire to. I think a lot of people, when it comes to |
| 0:49.0 | poetry, I think a lot of people get turned off from poems early in their lives because they read some poems that are |
| 0:54.3 | super basic and boring and all that they focus on is rhyming, or because they read some poem that is |
| 1:00.3 | incomprehensible complex and pretentious. |
| 1:04.0 | And then they decide, okay, all right, I get it. |
| 1:06.0 | Poems are not for me. |
| 1:07.0 | Poetry is not for me. |
| 1:08.0 | But I think that is a real loss. |
| 1:11.0 | I really think that there is such a breath of poetry out there that there is something |
| 1:15.5 | that will speak to you no matter who you are. And I think that an exceptional poem, a really |
| 1:20.5 | exceptional poem, it cuts to your core and it sticks with you for the rest of your life in a way that almost no other art can. |
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