“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
“I understand the phrase "Honor the Women" all too well: the poet has probably a wife of his own, but he prefers to honor another.” WellsWifePoetHonorPhrasesInfidelityLechery Author:Franz Grillparzer
“The best moments involve a loss of control. It's a kind of rapture, and it can happen with words and phrases fairly often - completely surprising combinations that make a higher kind of sense, that come to you out of nowhere. But rarely for extended periods, for paragraphs and pages - I think poets must have more access to this state than novelists do.” ThinkingKindStatesMomentsHappensLossPoetHigherPeriodsPagesAccessCombinationNovelistsPhrasesSurprisingParagraphRaptureBest Moments Author:Don DeLillo
“There's this pet phrase about writing that is bandied around particularly in workshops about "finding your own voice as a poet", which I suppose means that you come out from under the direct influence of other poets and have perhaps found a way to combine those influences so that it appears to be your own voice.” WayWritingMeanFoundVoiceInfluencePoetFindingsDirectPhrasesPetWorkshops Author:Billy Collins
“I've always been more than a little mystified by poets who seem to think talking to people as directly as possible is a bad thing. I mean, I don't want to set up a straw man here: I understand that for many poets - and for me, at times - writing truly means writing in a way that is difficult, simply because the poem is trying to grasp for something elusive. So the difficulty of the poem is just unavoidable, and not in any way artificially imposed. So "as possible" is the key part of the phrase above, I suppose.” PeopleThinkingMenWayWantWritingTryingMeanLittlesSeemsDifficultTalkingPoetKeysDifficultyPhrasesBad ThingsElusiveStraws Author:Matthew Zapruder
“I don't know that I had a sense that there was such a thing as "the poetry world" in the 1960s and early 70s. Maybe poets did, but for me as an onlooker and reader of poetry, poetry felt like it was part of a larger literary world. I mean, even the phrase "the poetry world" reflects a sort of balkanization of American literary and artistic life that has to some extent happened since then.” KnowsWorldMeanFeltHappenedPoetReaderArtisticPhrases1960sArtistic Life Author:Robert Hass
“There's this pet phrase about writing that is bandied around particularly in workshops about "finding your own voice as a poet", which I suppose means that you come out from under the direct influence of other poets and have perhaps found a way to combine those influences so that it appears to be your own voice. But I think you could also put it a different way. You, quote, find your voice, unquote, when you are able to invent this one character who resembles you, obviously, and probably is more like you than anyone else on earth, but is not the equivalent to you.” ThinkingWayWritingMeanDifferentCharacterAbleEarthFoundVoiceInfluencePoetLike YouFindingsDirectDifferent WaysPhrasesPetWorkshops Author:Billy Collins
“But for a few phrases from his letters and an odd line or two of his verse, the poet walks gagged through his own biography.” TwoLiteratureLinesWalksPoetLettersOddPhrasesPoeticVersesBiographiesMy Biography Book:Odd Jobs: Essays and Criticism Source: Odd Jobs: Essays and Criticism