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Quote by Donald Hall

“Virtually every beginning poet hurts himself by an addiction to adjectives. Verbs are by far the most important things for poems-especially wonderful tough monosyllables like "gasp" and "cry." Nouns are the next most important. Adjectives tend to be useless.”

Quote by Donald Hall

Author

Donald Hall is a renowned American poet, born on September 20, 1928. His poetry is known for its simplicity, depth, and emotional richness, which has won him a wide audience. more

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“Poetry is probably the one field of writing in which it is a mistake to try to psych out editors. In fact, specific marketing advice can sometimes harm the novice poet by enticing him to pursue fashions. The poet's best hope is to sound like nobody else, The finest, most enduring poetry constructs a marketplace of its own.”

“Be brief, be buoyant, and be brilliant.”

Author:Brander Matthews

“Imagination in a poet is a faculty so wild and lawless that, like a high ranging spaniel, it must have clogs tied to it, lest it outrun the judgment. The great easiness of blank verse renders the poet too luxuriant. He is tempted to say many things which might better be omitted, or, at least shut up in fewer words.”

Might Imagination Poet Judgment Faculty Fewer Tied Verses Blank Shut Up Tempted Outrun Easiness Spaniels

Book:The works of John Dryden now first collected ...

Source: The works of John Dryden now first collected ...

“Every now and then I meet someone certain of personal greatness. I want to pat this person on the shoulder and mutter comforting words: "Things will get better! You won't always feel so depressed! Cheer up!"”

Want Feels Persons Certain Greatness Shoulders Get Better Cheer Now And Then Comforting Cheer Up Comforting Words Things Will Get Better

Book:Poetry and ambition: essays, 1982-88

Source: Poetry and ambition: essays, 1982-88

“The truest and greatest Poetry, (while subtly and necessarily always rhythmic, and distinguishable easily enough) can never again, in the English language, be express'd in arbitrary and rhyming metre, any more than the greatest eloquence, or the truest power and passion.”

Enough Passion Language Arbitrary English Language Eloquence Truest Rhyming Greatest Poetry

Book:Specimen Days & Collect

Source: Specimen Days & Collect

“My biggest superhero of writing is Jorge Luis Borges, the Argentine fabulist. He's an amazingly perceptive writer, but also willing to make a joke.”

Writing Willing Jokes Superhero Borges

Author:John Hodgman

“On the one hand, I have wanted to supply documentation on myself by including material relevant to my emotions and ideas in my youth; and, on the other, not to let myself down by publishing inferior material. My poetry comes under the latter head. My only advice to the reader is to skip any verse that he sees coming.”

Ideas Hands Wanted Emotion Advice Youth Materials Reader Including Latter Relevant Publishing Verses Inferiors Skip Documentation

Author:Edmund Wilson

“A young poet in America should not be advised at the outset to give up all for the Muse-to seclude himself in the country, to live hand from mouth in Greenwich Village or to escape to the Riviera. I should not advise him even to become a magazine editor or work in a publisher's office. The poet would do better to study a profession, to become a banker or a public official or even to go in for the movies.”

Source: The shores of light: a literary chronicle of the twenties and thirties

“If at the end of your first ten or fifteen years of fighting and working and feeling, you find you've written one line of one poem, you'll be very lucky indeed.”

Ifs Years Firsts Ends Feelings Fighting Lines Written Lucky Ten Fifteen Fifteen Years One Line

Author:e. e. cummings

“My advice to all young people who wish to become poets is: do something easy, like learning how to blow up the world - unless you're not only willing, but glad, to feel and work and fight till you die.”

People World Feels Young Dies Fighting Wish Easy Advice Willing Poet Blow Glad

Author:e. e. cummings