“And some poets are far better read off the page because they're very bad speakers. I'm thinking of one in particular whom I won't name, a good poet, and he reads in such a dry, boring way, your eyes start drooping.” ThinkingWayEyeLiteratureNamesParticularPoetPagesBoringDrySpeakers Author:Norman MacCaig
“As a reader I don't distinguish between confessional and non-confessional work. After all, how do we even know that certain "I" poems are confessional? It's a tricky business, this correlating of the speaker and the poet.” KnowsCertainPoetReaderSpeakersTricky Author:Matthea Harvey
“For not by art does the poet sing, but by power divine. Had he learned by rules of art, he would have known how to speak not of one theme only, but of all; and therefore God takes away the minds of poets, and uses them as his ministers, as he also uses diviners and holy prophets, in order that we who hear them may know them to be speaking not of themselves who utter these priceless words in a state of unconsciousness, but that God himself is the speaker, and that through them he is conversing with us.” KnowsMindMayDoeArtStatesUseOrderSpeakKnownDivinePoetHolyMinistersProphetThemeSpeakersPricelessUnconsciousnessHoly Prophet Author:Plato
“I know that in a poem, even when the speaker is speaking from the poet's experience, there's always something that's borrowed, some authority that sits outside of the poet that the poem has claimed. There's a dramatic pitch that makes the speaker capable of saying something more courageous or stranger or simply other than what the poet would be able to say.” KnowsWould BeAblePoetAuthorityCapableStrangerDramaticCourageousSpeakersBorrowed Author:Tracy K. Smith
“I feel like the older I get, the truer it feels that I'm only going have an investment in a poem if it allows or forces me to bring something that's supremely me onto the page. I used to think that the speaker of a poem was talking to someone else, to some ideal reader or listener, but now I think that speakers - poets - are talking to themselves. The poem allows you to pose questions that you have you ask of yourself knowing that they are unanswerable.” IfsThinkingFeelsUsedAsksForceTalkingKnowingPoetReaderPagesIdealsInvestmentSpeakersListenersTalking To Someone Author:Tracy K. Smith
“I was inspired by, when I was in college, seeing some incredible speakers come to my school: Michael Eric Dyson, Spike Lee, Nikki Giovanni, and other poets and writers. I always loved that experience: going and sitting in an auditorium and listening to their opinions.” SchoolOpinionCollegePoetListeningInspiredIncrediblesSpeakers Author:J. Cole