Best poet & ifs Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 3

“I think a young poet, or an old poet, for that matter, should try to produce something that pleases himself personally, not only when he's written it but a couple of weeks later. Then he should see if it pleases anyone else, by sending it to the kind of magazine he likes reading.”

Ifs Thinking Should Trying Kind Matter Young Reading Written Week Produce Poet Couple Please Likes Magazines

Author:Philip Larkin

“If you would be a poet, write living newspapers. Be a reporter from outer space, filing dispatches to some supreme managing editor who believes in full disclosure and has a low tolerance for bullshit.”

Ifs Writing Believe Would Be Space Poet Lows Tolerance Newspapers Supreme Editors Bullshit Reporters Outer Space Disclosure Filing

Book:Poetry as Insurgent Art

Source: Poetry as Insurgent Art

“... Who alive can say 'Thou art no Poet - mayst not tell thy dreams'? Since every man whose soul is not a clod Hath visions, and would speak, if he had loved, And been well nurtured in his mother tongue.”

Ifs Men Wells Art Soul Dream Mother Speak Vision Alive Poet Tongue Every Man Mother Tongue

Book:The complete poetical works and letters of John Keats

Source: The complete poetical works and letters of John Keats

“I always knew that sooner or later there would come somebody like Woody Guthrie who could make a great song every week. Dylan certainly had a social agenda, but he was such a good poet that most of his attempts were head and shoulders above things that I and others were trying to do. ... If I had an address, I'd send him a birthday card saying, 'keep on going.'”

Ifs Trying Song Social Week Poet Shoulders Cards Addresses Agendas Sooner Or Later Dylan Woody Birthday Card

Author:Pete Seeger

“All poets are idlers, even if all idlers are not poets.”

Ifs Poet Idlers

Author:Tom Hodgkinson

“If a poem is written well, it was written with the poet's voice and for a voice. Reading a poem silently instead of saying a poem is like the difference between staring at sheet music and actually humming or playing the music on an instrument.”

Ifs Wells Reading Voice Differences Written Poet Instruments Staring Sheets Humming Sheet Music

Author:Robert Pinsky

“There is this tendency to think that if you could only find the magic way, then you could become a poet. "Tell me how to become a poet. Tell me what to do." . . . What makes you a poet is a gift for language, an ability to see into the heart of things, and an ability to deal with important unconscious material. When all these things come together, you're a poet. But there isn't one little gimmick that makes you a poet. There isn't any formula for it.”

Ifs Thinking Way Heart Littles Important Together Language Ability Deals Magic Poet Materials Tendencies Unconscious Formulas Ability To See Gimmicks

Author:Erica Jong

“A poet trains himself to stand out in a storm and be struck by lightning. If he is lucky enough to be struck six times, he becomes immortal. Randall Jarrell said it and he's right.”

Ifs Said Enough Poet Lucky Six Train Storm Immortal Lightning Standing Out

Book:The voiced connections of James Dickey: interviews and conversations

Source: The voiced connections of James Dickey: interviews and conversations

“Most poetry is the utterance of a man in some state of passion, love, joy, grief, rage, etc., and no doubt this is as it should be. But no man is perpetually in a passion and those states in which he is amused and amusing, detached and irreverent, if less important, are no less amusing. If there were no poets who, like Byron, express these states, Poetry would lack something.”

Ifs Men Should Important States Joy Passion Grief Doubt Poet Rage No Doubt Etc Poetry Is Amusing Detached Amused Utterance Love Passion Byron Irreverent

Author:W. H. Auden

“Do not ever read books about versification: no poet ever learnt it that way. If you are going to be a poet, it will come to you naturally and you will pick up all you need from reading poetry.”

Ifs Way Needs Book Reading Poet Picks Reading Poetry

Author:A. E. Housman

“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

“If you want to write poetry, you must have poems that deeply move you. Poems you can't live without. I think of a poem as the blood in a blood transfusion, given from the heart of the poet to the heart of the reader. Seek after poems that live inside you, poems that move through your veins.”

Ifs Thinking Want Writing Heart Moving Given Blood Poet Reader Veins Blood Transfusion

Author:Ralph Fletcher

“I know as well as thee that I am no poet born It is a trade, I never learnt nor indeed could learn If I make verses-'tis in spite Of nature and my stars I write.”

Ifs Knows Writing Wells Stars Born Poet Trade Thee Spite Verses

Book:The wit and wisdom of Benjamin Franklin: a treasury of more than 900 quotations and anecdotes

Source: The wit and wisdom of Benjamin Franklin: a treasury of more than 900 quotations and anecdotes

“If he had had no education, maybe Basho could have been a much greater poet.”

Ifs Has Beens Greater Poet Could Have Been

Author:Nanao Sakaki

“Now I would say at any given moment in American life, there are probably 45 poets in airplanes vectoring across the country heading towards...I don't know if anyone's reading it, but poets are still flying around the country going from lectern to lectern.That circuitry has become very well-established.”

Ifs Knows Wells Stills Country Moments Reading Given Poet Flying Airplane Headings American Life

Author:Billy Collins

“If the time should ever come when what is now called Science, thus famliarised to men, shall be ready to put on, as it were, a form of flesh and blood, the Poet will lend his divine spirit to the aid the transfiguration, and will welcome the Being thus produced, as a dear and genuine inmate of the household of man.”

Ifs Men Should Form Spirit Blood Divine Ready Poet Dear Aids Flesh Genuine Welcome Household Flesh And Blood Inmates Transfiguration

Author:William Wordsworth

“We want to be famous as a writer, as a poet, as a painter, as a politician, as a singer, or what you will. Why? Because we really don't love what we are doing. If you loved to sing, or to paint, or to write poems, if you really loved it you would not be concerned with whether you are famous or not.”

Ifs Want Writing Poet Politician Concerned Paint Singers Painter

Book:This Matter of Culture

Source: This Matter of Culture

“If experiments are performed thousands of times at all seasons and in every place without once producing the effects mentioned by your philosophers, poets, and historians, this will mean nothing and we must believe their words rather than our own eyes?”

Ifs Believe Mean Eye Effects Poet Seasons Philosopher Experiments Historian

Author:Galileo Galilei

“I may as well tell you, here and now, that if you are going about the place thinking things pretty, you will never make a modern poet. Be poignant, man, be poignant!”

Ifs Thinking Men Wells May Modern Poet Here And Now Poignant

Author:P. G. Wodehouse

“There is a long-standing tradition in America of scoffing at poets, especially if they show any interest in politics.”

Ifs Long Shows America Interest Poet Standing Tradition Interest In Politics Scoffing

Book:Parting Shots from My Brittle Bow: Reflections on American Politics and Life

Source: Parting Shots from My Brittle Bow: Reflections on American Politics and Life

“If God made poets for anything, it was to keep alive the traditions of the pure, the holy, and the beautiful.”

Ifs Made Beautiful Alive Poet Holy Pure Tradition

Book:My Study Windows

Source: My Study Windows

“Has anyone...any distinct notion of what poets of a stronger age understood by the word inspiration? ... There is an ecstasy such that the immese strain of it is sometimes relaxed by a flood of tears, along with which one's steps either rush or involuntarily lag, alternately. There is the feeling that one is completely out of hand, with the very distinct consciousness of an endless number of fine thrills and quiverings to the very toes... Everything happens quite involuntarily, as if in a tempestuous outburst of freedom, of absoluteness, of power and divinity.”

“When I get sent manuscripts from aspiring poets, I do one of two things: if there is no stamped self-addressed envelope, I throw it into the bin.-If there is, I write and tell them to f**k off.”

Ifs Writing Two Self Poet Two Things Manuscripts Envelopes

Author:Philip Larkin

“Poets in our civilization, as it exists at present, must be difficult...The poet must become more and more comprehensive, more allusive, more indirect, in order to force, to dislocate if necessary, language into its meaning.”

Ifs Order Language Force Difficult Poet Civilization Comprehensive Indirect

Author:T. S. Eliot

“How well I remember the aged poet Sophocles, when in answer to the question, "How does love suit with age, Sophocles - are you still the man you were?" he replied, "Peace, most gladly have I escaped the thing of which you speak; I feel as if I had escaped from a mad and furious master."”

Ifs Men Feels Wells Doe Stills Age Remember Speak Answers He Man Poet Masters Mad Suits Furious

Author:Plato

“Even if you're a poet sitting in your room writing a poem, you're still in the world - although I guess being a poet is a different than having to deal with 40 or 50 people to raise a couple million bucks and all that bullshit.”

People Ifs World Writing Stills Different Rooms Deals Millions Poet Couple Sitting Raises Bullshit Bucks Your Room

Author:Abel Ferrara

“If I'm the people's poet, then I ought to be in people's hands - and, I hope, in their heart.”

People Ifs Heart Hands Poet Ought

Author:Maya Angelou

“If you want to be considered a poet, you will have to show mastery of the petrarchan sonnet form or the sestina. Your musical efforts must begin with well-formed fugues. There is no substitute for craft... Art begins with craft, and there is no art until craft has been mastered.”

Ifs Want Wells Has Beens Art Shows Form Effort Poet Art Is Musical Crafts Substitutes Mastery Sonnet Fugue

Book:But Do Blondes Prefer Gentlemen?: Homage to Qwert Yuiop, and Other Writings

Source: But Do Blondes Prefer Gentlemen?: Homage to Qwert Yuiop, and Other Writings

“If you tell a novelist, 'Life's not like that', he has to do something about it. The poet simply replies, 'No, but I am.'”

Ifs Poet Novelists

Author:Philip Larkin

“I had to learn that slower is faster. If you practice every day with patience and correctness, you will get there. It's like preparing for a jump. You can't rush. You must summon the appropriate energy with split-second timing and have an understanding of purpose to get up in the air. It requires training, confidence and mental effort. You can't have a vocabulary without the alphabet. Balanchine used to say, "Do you want to be a poet of gesture or do you want to be a physical entity?"”

Ifs Want Used Purpose Energy Understanding Effort Practice Air Poet Training Get Up Faster Appropriate Gestures Splits Timing Entity Preparing Vocabulary Correctness Alphabet Up In The Air

Author:Edward Villella

“My mom was a manic depressive schizophrenic who, after a year in prison, went home and shot herself. My sister, Kirsten, an amazing poet, who was raised by this woman, and was dating a guy who broke up with her for the fourth time in three weeks. And one day, she came to his house, got a gun, and blew her brains out all over his headboard. I just went through a divorce, five years in court and cost me $2 million dollars. If anyone, by law, should be forced to take antidepressants it's me... But instead, I choose to be an antidepressant. And you can take me with alcohol.”

“We're talking about an extremely prolific poet and songwriter and lyricist. That stuff comes off the top of her head. She [Joni Mitchell] will write exactly what she lives. If she puts some money in the soda machine, she'll write about putting money in the soda machine. "Dry Cleaner from Des Moines," on the Shadows & Light album, was about sitting next to a dry cleaner from Des Moines, playing a slot machine.”

Ifs Writing Light Poetry Next Stuff Talking Poet Sitting Shadow Machines Albums Dry Songwriters Cleaners Soda Slot Machines Lyricists Des Moines Dry Cleaners

Author:Don Alias

“The spirit of the poet craves spectators... even if only buffaloes.”

Ifs Spirit Poet Crave Spectators

Book:The Portable Nietzsche

Source: The Portable Nietzsche

“Americans would have a right to go to war with the Iraqis if we could name one author from Iraq. It disturbs me that we're going to war with somebody we know absolutely nothing about. Name one Iraqi poet, one Iraqi woman activist, one Iraqi singer. Name one Iraqi novelist. You can't. And how can you go kill someone you don't know anything about?”

Ifs Knows War Names Poet Iraq Singers Novelists Activist Absolutely Nothing Going To War

Author:Jimmy Santiago Baca

“In America it's a particular problem. The artist, particularly the poet, is just unacknowledged; if I can use that dumb word. Maybe it has always been that way. Maybe the only way he or she can be acknowledged is to be connected with some movement, be it religious or political.”

Ifs Way I Can Use Problem America Political Artist Religious Movement Particular Poet Connected Dumb

Author:Gerald Stern

“I've been trying to come to terms with what I am and what I do and what I believe in. And I see that I'm not happy with - well, it's almost as if being a poet is not enough for me. It's too late for me to do more now. I did what I could in a small way. I did it as theater, too, to be honest.”

Ifs Way Trying Believe Wells Enough I Believe Term Honest Poet Late Theater I Believe In Being Honest Too Late Not Happy

Author:Gerald Stern

“The "truth" is the poem itself. Just because someone writes a poem about a feeling she has does not mean that the feeling will stay forever. The truth of the emotion of the poem remains, even if the particular truth of the poet changes.”

Ifs Writing Mean Doe Feelings Emotion Forever Particular Poet Truth Is Remains

Author:Denise Duhamel

“I look at the great poets of the Soviet Union, like Anna Akhmatova, who endured far worse then anything we've seen or hopefully that we will ever see. If they could keep writing and keep a voice alive, keep people hopeful through their poetry, then I would be ashamed to stop and to give in. It would be really self-indulgent, unacceptable, and inexcusable to walk away from it.”

People Ifs Giving Writing Looks Self Would Be Voice Walks Alive Poet Unions Hopefully Ashamed Hopeful Soviet Soviet Union Anna Great Poet Self Indulgent

Author:Sara Paretsky

“It's difficult to put your own bare ass out on the limb every time you sit down to write a poem. But that's really sort of the ideal. Because if we don't discover something about ourselves and our world in the making of a poem, chances are it's not going to be a very good poem. So what I'm saying is that a lot of our best poets could be better poets if they wrote less and risked more in what they do.”

Ifs World Writing Difficult Chance Poet Ideals Very Good Ass Our World Limbs Chances Are Best Poet

Author:Sam Hamill

“I haven't seen any poet in this country behave nearly as rudely as Newt Gingrich or Bill O'Reilly. I'm not asking these people to approve of everyone's manners. I don't feel obliged to defend the manners of every poet who submits a poem to my web site. That's not my job. My job is to provide them with an opportunity to speak from the heart. If there's not much in the heart and if the mouth is running wild, that's not my problem.”

People Ifs Feels Heart Country Problem Running Jobs Opportunity Speak Havens Poet Mouths Asking Bills Manners Behave Submit Site Obliged Newts Bill O Reilly Running Wild Speak From The Heart

Author:Sam Hamill

“Joyce's writing in Dubliners contains some of the most unshowily beautiful sentences in the English language. I learned from him that if you write a good, clean line of English, you can get under a reader's skin. The reader won't even know why, but there you are. Didion, Berger, the many others I mentioned above, and many, many poets I haven't mentioned. Writers of this calibre are the moving targets the rest of us are always chasing.”

Ifs Knows Writing Beautiful Moving Language Lines Havens Poet Reader Skins Clean Sentences Target Chasing English Language Joyce

Author:Teju Cole

“Technology will never rescue anyone from being a bad poet, but if you're good, it has the potential to do a lot of exciting things.”

Ifs Technology Poet Exciting Rescue Exciting Things

Author:Stephen Vincent Benet

“William Blake is my favorite poet of all time, and he said that he wasn't quite familiar with the sounds of music. If so, he would have been a musician.”

Ifs Has Beens Said Sound Poet Musician My Favorite Familiar All Time Blake Sound Of Music

Author:Benjamin Clementine

“Dear old al-Maarri was a great skeptic poet. He wrote a parody of the Koran, and his friends would tease him and say, "al-Maarri, but no one says your Koran." And he said, "Yes, but give me time. Give me time. If people recite it for twenty years it will become as popular as the other one."”

People Ifs Giving Years Said Poet Give Me Twenties Dear Als Skeptic Tease Parody

Author:Tariq Ali

“The horrors have made the legend of Mandelstam and are inevitably the lens through which we read his work and life. But if there had been no Stalin and no purge, Mandelstam still would have been a poet of severe emotional and existential extremity.”

Ifs Has Beens Made Stills Emotional Poet Horror Legends Existential Severe Lenses Extremity Work And Life

Author:Christian Wiman

“I mean, in the history of poetry there have been a lot poetries where you have to inherit the position of poet from your ancestors and I think that if you just leave anyone to become a poet based on an aristocratic society, then a lot of people are left out who might have something to offer.”

People Ifs Thinking Mean Has Beens Might Left Position Poet Offers Ancestor Left Out Aristocratic

Author:Edward Hirsch

“If I begin a poem, "I am a donkey," reason kicks in and says, "She is taking on the persona of a donkey." But if I write, "I have taken so many drugs I can't see my feet," the tendency is to take that as a confession on the part of the poet. Maybe that doesn't matter. I'd almost prefer for it to be the other way round.”

Ifs Way Writing I Can Matter Reason Taken Feet Poet Drug Rounds Tendencies Kicks Confession Persona Donkey

Author:Matthea Harvey

“If anything, hearing another poet is a sacred experience I enter, but I can honestly say this does not influence my own work.”

Ifs Doe I Can My Own Influence Poet Sacred Hearing Honestly

Author:Grace Cavalieri

“[Abbas Kiarostami] is a great artist and a poet. I sometimes think that if Samuel Beckett made films, he'd make them like Kiarostami makes them.”

Ifs Thinking Made Sometimes Film Artist Poet Great Art Great Artist Beckett Abba

Author:Anthony Minghella

“I think we've come to a kind of splinter period in poetry. These tiny little bright fragments of observation - and not produced under sufficient pressure - some of it's very skillful, but I don't think there's anywhere a discernible major poet in the process of emerging; or if he is, I ain't seen him.”

Ifs Thinking Kind Littles Process Poet Periods Majors Pressure Tiny Observation Sufficient Fragments Emerging Skillful Splinters

Author:Conrad Aiken

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