“I tried to explain to her the significance of the great poet, but without much success, The Waste Land not figuring very largely in Mam's scheme of things. "The thing is," I said finally, "he won the Nobel Prize." "Well," she said, with that unerring grasp of inessentials which is the prerogative of mothers, "I'm not surprised. It was a beautiful overcoat."” WellsSaidBeautifulMotherLandPoetWastePrizeSignificanceSchemesNobelNobel PrizeGreat PoetPrerogativeWaste LandOvercoat Author:Alan Bennett
“To cook, and to do it well, every talent must be used; the strength of a prize-fighter, the imagination of a poet, the brain of an empire builder, the patience of Job, the eye and the touch of an artist, and, to turn your mistakes into edible assets, the cleverness of a politician.” WellsEyeJobsUsedArtistTurnsImaginationMistakeBrainTalentPoetPoliticianCookingFighterCooksEmpiresPrizeAssetsClevernessBuilder Author:Anne Ellis
“I want people to see the beauty of that condition through the eyes of the characters. In doing that, they can allow people who have the condition to be more accepting of it, and to be open about it. That would be a contribution to the people who have it, and considering that 38% of the Pulitzer Prize winning poets are Bipolar, to think about how much these individuals have contributed to the human spirit.” PeopleThinkingWantHumansCharacterWould BeEyeSpiritWinningIndividualAcceptingConditionsPoetContributionPrizeConsideringHuman SpiritBipolarThrough The EyesPrize Winning Author:Paul Dalio
“[I have] my own view about [Bob] Dylan's Nobel prize. Which is, I'm firmly in the Nay camp. I do think the award is a category error, but that's not why. Not in itself. What bothers me is the perceived status of the categories. If pop lyricists were routinely considered for the prize as are authors and poets, I'd still think it mistaken, but I wouldn't much care. But I am quite certain that Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen, for example, both at the very least Dylan's equals as writers, have never been in the running and never will be.” IfsThinkingStillsCareRunningCertainMy OwnViewsExamplePoetErrorsPopsBotherPrizeWhy NotAwardsCategoriesCampsBobMistakenDylanNobelNobel PrizeLyricists Author:David Bennun
“The judges who awarded the 1980 Commonwealth Poetry Prize to my first collection of poems, Crossing the Peninsula and Other Poems, cited with approval and with no apparent conscious irony my early poem, "No Alarms." The poem was composed probably sometime in 1974 or 1975, and it complained about the impossibility of writing poetry - of being a poet - under the conditions in which I was living then.” WritingFirstsConditionsPoetJudgingConsciousIronyCollectionsPrizeApprovalImpossibilityAlarmsCrossingsCommonwealthWriting PoetryPeninsulas Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim
“If you look at the recent Nobel Prize winners, one couldn't say that the work didn't matter and the political commitment did. Who had ever heard of the Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz? He is not politically involved. Octavio Paz is a great poet, also not politically involved. The Nobel Prize is for literature, for the quality of work over the years.” IfsYearsLooksMatterPoliticalLiteratureQualityHeardPoetInvolvedCommitmentWinnerPrizeNobelNobel PrizeEgyptianGreat PoetQuality WorkNobel Prize Winners Author:Nadine Gordimer
“Two years ago I was on the train from Berlin to Frankfurt when I heard that the Nobel Peace Prize had been awarded to my close friend, the writer Liu Xiaobo, who is imprisoned in China. To me it was confirmation that universal values and a moral code do exist, and that the point of the Nobel Prize is to encourage writers to stand up for this moral code. Last Thursday I was once again on the train from Berlin to Frankfurt when I heard that the Nobel Prize for Literature had gone to Mo Yan. He is a state poet. I am utterly bewildered. Do these universal values not exist after all?” ValuesLiteratureMoralPoetTrainCodePrizeNobel PrizeClose FriendsConfirmation Author:Liao Yiwu