“Never use the word 'audience.' The very idea of a public, unless the poet is writing for money, seems wrong to me. Poets don't have an 'audience'. They're talking to a single person all the time.” WritingPersonsIdeasUseSeemsTalkingAudiencePoetSingle Person Author:Robert Graves
“It is a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it.” WritingArtFactsPoetryCultureMoneyTalkingPoetMaking MoneyMore MoneyMakin Money Author:W. H. Auden
“We're talking about an extremely prolific poet and songwriter and lyricist. That stuff comes off the top of her head. She [Joni Mitchell] will write exactly what she lives. If she puts some money in the soda machine, she'll write about putting money in the soda machine. "Dry Cleaner from Des Moines," on the Shadows & Light album, was about sitting next to a dry cleaner from Des Moines, playing a slot machine.” IfsWritingLightPoetryNextStuffTalkingPoetSittingShadowMachinesAlbumsDrySongwritersCleanersSodaSlot MachinesLyricistsDes MoinesDry Cleaners Author:Don Alias
“With "poets dead and gone" as Keats says in "Mermaid Tavern" they are alive and talking to us and us to them.” TalkingGoneAlivePoetMermaidTaverns Author:Gregory Orr
“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
“When I hear Khmer poets, when they recite their poems, I know what they're talking about, I get it right away.” KnowsTalkingPoet Author:Chath Piersath
“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