Home / Topics / Poet Quotes

Poet Quotes

Browse 4287 quotes about Poet.

Poet Quotes

“Poetry is a bad medium for philosophy. Everything in the philosophical poem has to satisfy irreconcilable requirements: for instance, the last demand that we should make of philosophy (that it be interesting) is the first we make of a poem; the philosophical poet has an elevated and methodical, but forlorn and absurd air as he works away at his flying tank, his sewing-machine that also plays the piano.”

Should Firsts Philosophy Play Lasts Interesting Air Poet Demand Machines Philosophical Flying Absurd Mediums Instance Piano Poetry Is Requirements Tanks Sewing Forlorn Methodical

Author:Randall Jarrell

“One demands two things of a poem. Firstly, it must be a well-made verbal object that does honor to the language in which it is written. Secondly, it must say something significant about a reality common to us all, but perceived from a unique perspective. What the poet says has never been said before, but, once he has said it, his readers recognize its validity for themselves.”

Wells Doe Made Said Two Reality Language Common Written Objects Poet Perspective Reader Honor Demand Unique Significant Two Things Validity Poetry By Famous Poets Unique Perspective

Author:W. H. Auden

“One of the great unresolved psychological enigmas of the modern western world is the question of what or who has persuaded us to accept as virtually axiomatic a self-view and a world-view that demand we reject out of hand the wisdom and vision of our major philosophers and poets in order to imprison our thought and our very selves in the materialist, mechanical and dogmatic torture-chamber devised by purely quantitative and third-rate scientific minds.”

Source: Human image, world image: the death and resurrection of sacred cosmology

“The poet presents the imagination with images from life and human characters and situations, sets them all in motion and leaves itto the beholder to let these images take his thoughts as far as his mental powers will permit. This is why he is able to engage men of the most differing capabilities, indeed fools and sages together. The philosopher, on the other hand, presents not life itself but the finished thoughts which he has abstracted from it and then demands that the reader should think precisely as, and precisely as far as, he himself thinks. That is why his public is so small.”

“Poetry and music I have banished, But the stupidity Of root, shoot, blossom or clay Makes no demand. I bend my body to the spade Or grope with a dirty hand.”

Body Hands Poetry Music Poet Demand Musician Roots Stupidity Dirty Clay Spades Poetry And Music Dirty Hands

Book:The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition

Source: The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition

“Schoolchildren all over America are told to write to authors-often to authors whom they have never before heard of, whose work they are to young to understand in the least, and often in letters which are almost illiterate. If children are to be taught to respect the work of American poets I think some better way might be found to do so- some way which would not make such an inconsiderate demand on the author's time.”

Ifs Thinking Way Writing Children Might America Young Found Heard Taught Poet Demand Letters Better Ways Illiterate Inconsiderate

Author:Conrad Aiken

“And when we are writing the life of a woman, we may, it is agreed, waive our demand for action, and substitute love instead. Love, the poet has said, is a woman's whole existence.”

Writing May Said Whole Action Existence Poet Demand Substitutes

Book:Selected Works of Virginia Woolf

Source: Selected Works of Virginia Woolf

“Whatever my passions demand of me, I become for the time being - musician, poet, director, author, lecturer or anything else.”

Passion Poet Directors Demand Musician My Passion Lecturer

Author:Richard Wagner

“A poet has to adapt himself, more or less consciously,to the demands of his vocation, and hence the peculiarities of poets and the condition of inspiration which many people have said is near to madness... The problem of creative writing is essentially one of concentration... a focusing of the attention in a special way.”

People Way Writing Said Problem Inspiration Attention Creative Special Conditions Poet Demand Madness Concentration Vocation Creative Writing

Author:Stephen Spender