... a poem.

All night I spread portfolios
and pulled paintings down from racks ...
I showed him what he had made. It is not
enough, he told me, and he died.

—Robert Kelly, "The Death of Joseph Stella," November, 1946.

... a short story.

"I think how love is, is how to dance. It's hard, but you do it anyway. You practice and learn the positions for it. Bring me my crutches, lover dear, if you wouldn't mind, so I can dance love for you. Then you'll see all about it. It has to be shown and not talked of."

—Carol Emshwiller, "Emissary," from the collection The Start of The End of It All.

... a short story.

Mr. Bert Eon's nakedness reinforces the image of the robust health he enjoys. His body challenges the smooth nakedness of his wife and of his secretary. They are repelled and also terribly attracted to him. Kissing him is like chewing hairs ...

—Walter Abish, "Non-Site," from the collection Minds Meet, 1975.

... a short story.

Does anybody know what Art is or should be?

Do we try to redefine it every day of our lives?

Every other day?

Every now and then?

What will you give me if I succeed in redefining Art once and for all?

Well, then, must we do our Art without knowing any sure things about it?

Yes.

—Carol Emswhiller, "Joy in Our Cause," from the short story collection of the same title.

... a novel.

Her name was Diana Moon Glampers. No one had ever loved her. There was no reason why anyone should. She was ugly, stupid, and boring. On the rare occasions when she had to introduce herself, she always said her full name, and followed that with the mystifying equation that had thrust her into life so pointlessly:

"My mother was a Moon. My father was a Glampers."

—Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater.

... an essay.

The trouble with the interpreter is that he is too intelligent. He understands what the artist wants to say and even saves him the trouble of saying it—or at least of saying it in as pointed and polished a way as it could be said.

For it seems to me that, if the poet were left to himself, and not prematurely flattered by a few prigs, who happen to comprehend him before he is quite comprehensible, he might have worked in a harder and humbler fashion, until he had made his whole image really comprehensible and complete.

The poet's friends are so fantastically vain of having understood it when it was unfinished, that they rush about boasting of their understanding, that they may get the glory of it before other people can understand.

I do think it would be better if some really original poets of today went on pegging away, until their best effects were more like notes on a musical instrument and less like notes in a notebook.

—G. K. Chesterton, “The Middleman in Poetry”