“I don't think I'd ever get any better as a poet if I didn't push myself, very deliberately, to grow. My best poems surprise me, as they should, but I fight them at every turn, possibly just because I'm stubborn.” IfsThinkingShouldTurnsFightingGrowsPoetSurpriseStubbornSurprise MeBest Poem Author:James Arthur
“A good poem has its own life. It's like bringing a child into the world. You, the poet, birthed the child, but the child will surprise you continually. I think a work of art has its own aliveness, its own future.” ThinkingWorldChildrenArtPoetSurpriseWorks Of Art Author:David Whyte
“One of my great surprises when I was in America was about twenty-five years ago in Harvard, hearing Randall Jarrell deliver a bitter attack on the way poets were neglected. Yet there were about two thousand people present, and he was being paid five hundred dollars for delivering this attack.” PeopleWayYearsTwoAmericaFivePoetThousandHundredYears AgoPaidTwentiesDollarsSurpriseHearingBitterFive YearsNeglectedHarvardTwenty FiveDelivering Author:Stephen Spender
“That being said, some of my favorite poets are extremely funny. The aforementioned Matt Rohrer, for instance. Mary Ruefle. James Tate might be the best example of someone who is systematically misread because he can be hilarious. In his poems, as in all great funny poems, the humor is one very appealing version of the surprise and associative movement that is at the heart of all poetry.” HeartSaidMightExampleMovementPoetSurpriseMy FavoriteVersionsInstanceBeing The BestMaryExtremely Funny Author:Matthew Zapruder
“Poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by singularity, it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance.” InspirationalShouldPoetryLiteraturePoetFineReaderHighestSurpriseStrikesExcessRemembranceSingularityReading PoetryWordingRemembrance DayPoetry By PoetsPoetry ReadingGreatest Poetry Author:John Keats
“My poems are certainly in the lyric tradition, but perhaps a reader can tell me more precisely who I am as a poet. How can I be so old and not know? I have always been deeply grateful for the urge to write, the desire to create, that's certain. Writing has always been the way I make sense of life. Perhaps my poems define me, rather than the other way around. They do constantly surprise me.” WritingDesirePoetTraditionGratefulSurpriseMake SenseSurprise Me Author:Connie Wanek