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Michael Longley Quotes

Poet

Michael Longley is an Irish poet born on July 27, 1939. His poetry is known for its profound humanistic concern and delicate portrayal of nature, featuring unique style and beautiful language.

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All Happens Gaps Ifs Might Poet Art Book Form Four Grows

Famous Michael Longley Quotes

“A good poem is not completely a poem until it has received a critical response that grows out of the poem in an almost biological way.”

Way Grows Response Critical

Author:Michael Longley

“I think a philistine environment should be bracing for young artists. You have to make your own enjoyment, you've got to make your own art.”

Thinking Should Art Young Artist Environment Enjoyment Young Artists Philistines

Author:Michael Longley

“I was the first Arts Council official in the archipelago to do something for what you might call indigenous music.”

Firsts Art Might Officials Council Indigenous

Author:Michael Longley

“Every Monday morning I try to remember to say "Thank you, Lord. I'm not at the Senior Staff Meeting."”

Trying Remember Lord Morning Meetings Staff Senior Monday Saying Thank You Monday Morning Thank You Lord

Author:Michael Longley

“I do feel that a poem needs not just space, but, ideally, space around that space - space for meditation, reverie, subliminal link-ups. I sense that poetry happens at a level above or below intelligence. It doesn't come into being at a purely rational level.”

Needs Feels Happens Space Levels Meditation Rational Links Reverie Subliminal

Author:Michael Longley

“Of course, when a poem is being born, the reasoning part of the brain throbs away at full throttle, but all the other areas are overlapping and interacting as well, the emotional, intuitive, animal areas.”

Wells Courses Born Animal Brain Emotional Areas Reasoning Intuitive Interacting Overlapping Throttle

Author:Michael Longley

“The job has left me with a healthy disregard for what you might call Public Life. I have no desire now to go to receptions, to be seen at gatherings of the great and the good, to stand and be bored to death by men in grey suits.”

Men Might Jobs Desire Left Healthy Suits Bored Grey Gathering Public Life Disregard Reception Bored To Death

Author:Michael Longley

“I suppose that as you grow older some sense of an accumulating oeuvre is unavoidable.”

Grows

Author:Michael Longley

“There's always a danger of writers believing their own publicity. We live in a world of puff and solicited blurb, a world of favours and backscratching.”

World Believe Danger Favour Publicity Puff

Author:Michael Longley

“In America, where you'd have thought the country's so huge it couldn't happen quite so cosily, everyone's giving his imprimatur to everyone else. You line up three or four well-known poets and a couple of eminent academics on the dustjacket, and the rest of academe follow like sheep. That's death really, if you take pleasure in it. Mind you, the occasional puff's hard to resist, but you shouldn't inhale.”

Ifs Giving Mind Wells Country Hard Happens America Three Lines Pleasure Known Four Poet Huge Couple Sheep Well Known Occasional Puff Inhale

Author:Michael Longley

“I'm not against ambition and reach, but if you can say it in four lines, why waste your time saying it in more? Challenge the world by all means, but it's bad for your poetry to take steroids.”

Ifs World Mean Challenges Lines Four Waste Ambition Steroid

Author:Michael Longley

“I don't know where the shape of a poem comes from. I certainly don't impose it. I write out of a jumble of emotions and vague notions and scraps of knowledge. At some stage a form or, rather, a shape mysteriously emerges.”

Knows Writing Form Emotion Stage Shapes Notion Vague Scrap

Author:Michael Longley

“I'm not the kind of poet who arranges treasure-hunts to please the academics and keep them busy. Poetry should be surprising in deeper ways.”

Way Should Kind Poet Please Busy Deeper Treasure Surprising Hunts Treasure Hunt

Author:Michael Longley

“For me the form, the stanzaic shape, is an endorsement, proof that I'm engaged with the Latin or Greek at an original level, that my versions are explorations.”

Form Levels Shapes Originals Proof Versions Greek Engaged Latin Exploration Endorsements

Author:Michael Longley

“Weddings and funerals have so much in common (except that in Ireland funerals are more fun - better food, better drink): at both, our senses are sharpened and we register much more than usual - a striking face or hair-do, the wind's behaviour, a bird singing.”

Faces Fun Common Wind Hair Drink Singing Bird Senses Funeral Usual Ireland Behaviour Register

Author:Michael Longley

“I work hard to make the poems as good as they can be, and if they're not good enough I scrap them. I find it difficult after a gap of a few years to tinker - I'm more likely to destroy.”

Ifs Years Hard Enough Difficult Hard Work Good Enough Gaps Scrap Not Good Enough

Author:Michael Longley

“Most poets' revisions are disastrous. They buckle and dent what was originally forged at a red-hot heat.”

Poet Red Hot Heat Revision Forged Buckles Red Hot

Author:Michael Longley

“When I'm assembling a book I concentrate as though I were writing a poem. A truly imagined arrangement will indicate gaps and generate new poems. I re-read the new poems in my folder in the hope that this might happen.”

Writing Book Might Happens Gaps Arrangements Assembling Folders

Author:Michael Longley

“I hardly ever look at my published books.”

Looks Book

Author:Michael Longley

“I would insist that poetry is a normal human activity and its proper concern all the things that happen to people.”

People Humans Happens Activity Normal Concern Poetry Is Human Activity

Book:Tuppenny stung: autobiographical chapters

Source: Tuppenny stung: autobiographical chapters

“The gap between verse and poetry is enormous. Between good poetry and good prose the gap is much narrower”

Enormous Prose Poetry Is Gaps Verses Good Poetry

Author:Michael Longley

About the Author

Born: July 27, 1939
Known for: Poet
Quotes: 21

Books & Sources

Tuppenny stung: autobiographical chaptersRelated source material

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