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Poet Quotes

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Poet Quotes

“I fell in love with social work, and that was my undoing as a poet.”

Social Poet Social Work Undoing

Author:Carl Rakosi

“Sappho is a great poet because she is a lesbian, which gives her erotic access to the Muse. Sappho and the homosexual-tending Emily Dickinson stand alone above women poets, because poetry's mystical energies are ruled by a hierach requiring the sexual subordination of her petitioners. Women have achieved more as novelists than as poets because the social novel operates outside the ancient marriage of myth and eroticism.”

Giving Energy Social Novel Poet Ancient Myth Access Novelists Muse Mystical Homosexual Erotic Stand Alone Emily Great Poet Subordination

Author:Camille Paglia

“In America, the term younger poet is applied with chivalric liberality. It can be used to describe anyone not yet collecting a Social Security pension.”

America Used Social Term Security Poet Social Security Collecting Pension Liberality

Author:Dana Gioia

“The storyteller and poet of our time, as in any other time, must be an entertainer of the spirit in the full sense of the word, not just a preacher of social or political ideals. There is no paradise for bored readers and no excuse for tedious literature that does not intrigue the reader, uplift him, give him the joy and the escape that true art always grants.”

Source: The collected stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer

“While the poet entertains he continues to search for eternal truths, for the essence of being. In his own fashion he tries to solve the riddle of time and change, to find an answer to suffering, to reveal love in the very abyss of cruelty and injustice. Strange as these words may sound I often play with the idea that when all the social theories collapse and wars and revolutions leave humanity in utter gloom, the poet--whom Plato banned from his Republic--may rise up to save us all.”

Source: Aspects of I.B. Singer

“Social questions are too sectional, too topical, too temporal to move a man to the mighty effort which is needed to produce greatpoetry. Prison reform may nerve Charles Reade to produce an effective and businesslike prose melodrama; but it could never produce Hamlet, Faust, or Peer Gynt.”

Men May Moving Poetry Social Effort Produce Poet Needed Prison Reform Prose Nerves Peers Melodrama Faust Prison Reform

Author:George Bernard Shaw

“... in a history of spiritual rupture, a social compact built on fantasy and collective secrets, poetry becomes more necessary than ever: it keeps the underground aquifers flowing; it is the liquid voice that can wear through stone.”

Spiritual Spirit Poetry Social Voice Secret Fantasy Poet Built Stones Collectives Poetry Is Liquid Compact Rupture Aquifers

Book:What Is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics (Expanded Edition)

Source: What Is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics (Expanded Edition)

“The world is full of people who have lost faith: politicians who have lost faith in politics, social workers who have lost faith in social work, schoolteachers who have lost faith in teaching and, for all I know, policemen who have lost faith in policing and poets who have lost faith in poetry. It's a condition of faith that it gets lost from time to time, or at least mislaid.”

People Knows World Faith Lost Social Teaching Conditions Poet Politician Workers Social Work Policemen Social Worker Lost Faith

Book:A Taste for Death

Source: A Taste for Death

“I think about the poet Rainer Maria Rilke who said that it's the questions that move us, not the answers. As a writer, I believe that it's our task, our responsibility, to hold the mirror up to social injustices that we see and to create a prayer of beauty. The questions serve us in that capacity.”

Thinking Believe Said Moving I Believe Social Prayer Answers Responsibility Poet Capacity Tasks Mirrors Injustice Social Injustice

Author:Terry Tempest Williams

“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

“The poets think about war more than the social scientists.”

Thinking War Social Poet Scientist

Author:George Friedman

“Social media is alluring, tempting, frustrating, etc. We mistake our interactions in social media as community, but is community possible when you don't even know what someone looks like or what his or her voice sounds like? I've enjoyed connecting with a lot of poets through social media, but do I truly know them if I haven't even met them yet?”

Ifs Knows Looks Social Sound Voice Community Mistake Media Havens Poet Mets Social Media Enjoyed Etc Interaction Frustrating Connecting Tempting Alluring

Author:Allison Joseph

“I worked privately, and sometimes I feel that might be better for poets than the kind of social workshop gathering. My school was the great poets: I read, and I read, and I read.”

Feels Kind Sometimes Might School Social Poet Gathering Workshops Great Poet

Author:Mary Oliver

“If we're gonna progress as a people we are going to realise that, as one of my favourite poets says, the other is a lie. There are no other people. Race is a social construct.”

People Ifs Lying Social Race Progress Poet Realising Favourite Constructs

Author:Saul Williams

“Backlock, a poet blind from his birth, could describe visual objects with accuracy; Professor Sanderson, who was also blind, gave excellent lectures on color, and taught others the theory of ideas which they had and he had not. In the social sphere these gifted ones are mostly women; they can watch a world which they never saw, and estimate forces of which they have only heard. We call it intuition.”

World Ideas Force Social Watches Saws Heard Objects Taught Color Poet Theory Birth Blind Intuition Excellent Visuals Professors Spheres Gifted Lectures Accuracy

Author:Thomas Hardy