“I think we will always have the impulse towards visual poetry with us, and I wouldn't agree with Bly that it's a bad thing. It depends on the ability of the individual poet to do it well, and to make a shape which is interesting enough to hold your attention.” ThinkingWellsEnoughIndividualAbilityInterestingAttentionPoetDependsShapesAgreeImpulseVisualsBad Things Author:James Laughlin
“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.” ShouldFirstsPhilosophyPlayLastsInterestingAirPoetDemandMachinesPhilosophicalFlyingAbsurdMediumsInstancePianoPoetry IsRequirementsTanksSewingForlornMethodical Author:Randall Jarrell
“Few poets have made a more interesting rhetoric out of just fooling around: turning things upside down, looking at them from under the sofa, considering them (and their observer) curiously enough to make the reader protest, "That were to consider it too curiously.” MadeEnoughInterestingPoetReaderProtestRhetoricConsideringObserversUpside DownSofasFooling AroundThings Upside Down Author:Randall Jarrell
“Some of the old folk singers used to phrase things in an interesting way, and then, I got my style from seeing a lot of outdoor-type poets, who would recite their poetry. When you don't have a guitar, you recite things differently, and there used to be quite a few poets in the jazz clubs, who would recite with a different type of attitude.” WayDifferentUsedInterestingAttitudeSeeingStylePoetTypeJazzGuitarFolksClubsSingersUsed To BePhrasesInteresting Ways Author:Bob Dylan
“My first advice would be to read, read, read, which sounds interesting coming in a digital age, but it's so much easier to listen to a poem than it is to sit down and actually read it and to hear it in your head and that is something that every poet or aspiring poet needs to be able to do, I think to hear it in their head.” ThinkingNeedsFirstsWould BeAgeAbleSoundInterestingAdvicePoetEasierDown AndDigitalDigital Age Author:Rita Dove
“Poetry is difficult, I mean interesting poetry, not confessional babble or emotive propaganda. Reading a new poet is discovering an entire world, what Stevens called a 'mundo' and it takes a lot of time to orientate oneself in such a world. What we have to learn to do then, as teachers and militants of a poetic insurgency, is to encourage people to learn to love the difficulty of poetry. I simply do not understand much of the poetry that I love.” PeopleWorldMeanReadingDifficultInterestingTeacherPoetDifficultyOneselfPropagandaPoetry IsPoeticDiscoveringInsurgency Author:Simon Critchley
“I really think kids should understand that music is like learning the alphabet. You put small letters together to make words, and then you use these words to create a story, but with music. And they really need to know how to mix and match those letters and how to come up with something that is really interesting, or speak in metaphors as poets do to show us something maybe we didn't think about.” ThinkingKnowsNeedsShouldStoriesUseShowsKidsTogetherSpeakInterestingKnow HowPoetMusic IsLettersMetaphorCome UpReally InterestingAlphabet Author:Terry Bozzio
“When we look at the arts and letters in America, especially if we look at poetry, and poetry set to music, this dialogue, we have this very powerful beautiful, eclectic, diary, or narration of being in America, being American, participating in America, becoming more of America and also as an American, the American creative spirit, which is quite interesting. Our composers and poets have spent more time writing and thinking and speaking out of what it means to be a composer or poet as well as to be an American, or a composer or poet In America; both relationships.” ThinkingWritingMeanArtBeautifulSpiritInterestingPowerfulCreativePoetDialogueComposerVery PowerfulEclecticSpeaking Out Author:Thomas Hampson
“If you're a poet and you're using rhyme, rhyme generates ideas. If you're a songwriter and you're using melody and words together, they bounce off each other in interesting ways that you couldn't get otherwise, because you do things unexpectedly.” TogetherInterestingPoetMelodyRhymeUsing Me Author:Momus
“There were illegal poets like Muzaffar al-Nawab, this is the thing - Muzaffar was widely known and he didn't really have books. He would deliver these readings on cassette tape. Go on YouTube and listen to him. He's like a preacher. He's a really interesting figure in modern Iraqi life.” BookReadingInterestingModernPoetPreacherReally Interesting Author:Elliott Colla