“Now, I do say, "It's possible. You might be the first. I'm not saying it's impossible, but the odds are very much against you." All great poets have been great readers and the way to learn your craft in poetry is by reading other poetry and by letting it guide you.” WayFirstsHas BeensMightReadingImpossiblePoetReaderGuidesCraftsPoetry IsOddsGreat Poet Author:Edward Hirsch
“In a way, that's also a recognition that Dante needs Virgil and that the Inferno needs the Aeneid and that the epic needs a model and that for Dante to write this great poem he needs someone to come before him and he turns to Virgil's text, especially book six where Aeneas goes down into the underworld. And for me, that's a model of the poet's relationship to previous poetry, to another poetry as calling out for guidance.” WayNeedsWritingBookTurnsPoetCallingSixModelsRecognitionGuidanceEpicUnderworldInfernoAeneas Author:Edward Hirsch
“So, the process of revision, it's not systematic. But for me, I mean, I know a lot of poets who write out a draft and then revise it and I think they're happier people. But, I'm just not able to do it that way. I need to just continually examine it as I do it.” PeopleThinkingKnowsWayNeedsWritingMeanAbleProcessPoetSystematicRevision Author:Edward Hirsch
“The way to become a poet is to read poetry and to imitate what you read and to read passionately and widely and in as involved a way as you can.” WayPoetInvolved Author:Edward Hirsch
“When I taught at the University of Houston in the Creative Writing program we required the poets to take workshops in fiction writing and we required the fiction writers to take workshops in poetry. And the reason for that is because the fiction writers seemed to need to learn how to pay greater attention to language itself, to the way that language works.” WayNeedsWritingReasonLanguagePayAttentionFictionCreativeGreaterTaughtPoetProgramUniversityCreative WritingWorkshopsFiction WritingFiction WritersHouston Author:Edward Hirsch
“If I begin a poem, "I am a donkey," reason kicks in and says, "She is taking on the persona of a donkey." But if I write, "I have taken so many drugs I can't see my feet," the tendency is to take that as a confession on the part of the poet. Maybe that doesn't matter. I'd almost prefer for it to be the other way round.” IfsWayWritingI CanMatterReasonTakenFeetPoetDrugRoundsTendenciesKicksConfessionPersonaDonkey Author:Matthea Harvey
“As we all know, poets are born brain-wired a certain way and every poet I know wrote as a child. I'm no exception.” KnowsWayChildrenCertainBornBrainPoetException Author:Grace Cavalieri
“Poets have to keep pushing, pushing, against the darkness, and write their way out of it as well.” WayWritingWellsDarknessPoetPushing Author:Anne Waldman
“To be a political poet means simply to be a poet, and any poet worth their salt will be a political animal in their own peculiar way - they have no choice: politics is one of the many fragments we thread into the tapestry of the poem.” WayMeanPoliticalChoicesAnimalPoetPeculiarSaltThreadFragmentsTapestryPolitical Animals Author:Andre Naffis-Sahely
“As poet laureate, I was asked to be a spokesman for literature. Then what I decided is I am a spokesman for this other imagination of community - not the one showing up in the market. Nobody was tending to the way we're imaginatively connected to each other.” WayLiteratureCommunityImaginationPoetDecidedConnectedShowing Up Author:Robert Hass
“I know that in some ways I operate from a kind of antiquated interest in imagery, while many contemporary poets are not so interested in imagery. I think part of it is my training, and just my visual sense of things.” ThinkingKnowsWayKindInterestPoetTrainingContemporaryVisualsImagery Author:Martha Ronk
“Often poets fall into groups that exclude others, and don't pay attention to those who write in different ways. It seems so limited to me.” WayWritingDifferentSeemsFallPayAttentionGroupsPoetPay AttentionDifferent Ways Author:Martha Ronk
“In the 1970s, for example, I found myself learning to relish the poetry of Andrew Marvell and Sir Thomas Wyatt, and getting a handle on poetry of plainer speech than I had dwelt with heretofore. Which led me into a new appreciation of middle [William Butler ] Yeats, of the short three-beat line and forward-driving syntax, and that paid in, in turn, to a poem like Casualty in Field Work. The traffic, however, was usually the other way. My teaching was animated by what I was reading and being excited by as a poet.” WayTurnsThreeReadingFoundLinesTeachingMiddleExampleFieldsPoetSpeechBeatsPaidAppreciationExcitedDrivingHandleTrafficAnimatedRelishCasualtiesAndrewButlersSyntaxYeats Author:Adam Kirsch
“I had this idea for a long time to make a film about a poet in Paterson named Patterson. I wanted him to be working class. Eventually I thought a bus was a perfect visual way to move him, to drift him through the city, to have a measured kind of routine lifestyle. And all these things kind of congealed into the film "Paterson" eventually.” WayKindLongIdeasWantedFilmMovingPerfectCitiesClassPoetLong TimeLifestyleVisualsRoutineBusWorking Class Author:Jim Jarmusch
“I switch between fixed forms and free verse often, and enjoy being a poet who can "swing both ways," so to speak.” WayFormSpeakEnjoyPoetFixedSwingsVersesFree Verse Author:Allison Joseph
“There's this pet phrase about writing that is bandied around particularly in workshops about "finding your own voice as a poet", which I suppose means that you come out from under the direct influence of other poets and have perhaps found a way to combine those influences so that it appears to be your own voice. But I think you could also put it a different way. You, quote, find your voice, unquote, when you are able to invent this one character who resembles you, obviously, and probably is more like you than anyone else on earth, but is not the equivalent to you.” ThinkingWayWritingMeanDifferentCharacterAbleEarthFoundVoiceInfluencePoetLike YouFindingsDirectDifferent WaysPhrasesPetWorkshops Author:Billy Collins
“A trouble with poetry is the presence of presumptuousness in poetry, the sense you get in a poem that the poet takes for granted an interest on the reader's part in the poet's autobiographical life, in the poet's memories, problems, difficulties and even minor perceptions. I try to presume that no one is interested in me. And I think experience bears that out. No one's interested in the experiences of a stranger - let's put it that way. And then you have difficulty combined with presumptuousness, which is the most dire trouble with poetry.” ThinkingWayTryingProblemInterestMemoriesTroublePoetBearsReaderPerceptionDifficultyStrangerGrantedPoetry IsMinors Author:Billy Collins
“My mother teaches high school English, and she's an artist and a poet and a sculptor, she's published twelve poetry books. I grew up in a household in Venezuela with living, breathing art installations that were the way that she used to express herself, a highly creative environment where ideas were celebrated, where artistic expression was celebrated. Seeing her as somebody who was always able to have a creative output - if she felt sad, she wrote a poem, if she felt happy, she made a sculpture - I think for me, there was an early interest in finding outlets for my passions.” IfsThinkingWayArtMadeBookIdeasAbleSchoolUsedMotherArtistPassionFeltInterestTeachCreativeEnvironmentSeeingPoetExpressionGrewFindingsGrew UpHigh SchoolArtisticBreathingTwelveHouseholdSculptureOutletsMy PassionSculptorsOutputVenezuelaArtistic ExpressionInstallationSchool English Author:Jason Silva
“I make it clear why I write as I do and why other poets write as they do. After hundreds of experiments I decided to go my own way in style and see what would happen.” WayWritingHappensLiteratureMy OwnClearStylePoetDecidedExperiments Book:Ever the Winds of Chance Source: Ever the Winds of Chance
“A poet looks at the world the way a man looks at a woman.” MenWorldWayWritingLooksPoetryPoetPoeticHousework Author:Wallace Stevens
“Once you have an innovation culture, even those who are not scientists or engineers - poets, actors, journalists - they, as communities, embrace the meaning of what it is to be scientifically literate. They embrace the concept of an innovation culture. They vote in ways that promote it. They don't fight science and they don't fight technology.” WayCultureFightingActorsCommunityTechnologyPoetConceptsVoteScientistInnovationEmbraceJournalistEngineers Author:Neil deGrasse Tyson
“The poet's job is to put into words those feelings we all have that are so deep, so important, and yet so difficult to name, to tell the truth in such a beautiful way, that people cannot live without it.” PeopleWayImportantFeelingsTruthJobsBeautifulNamesDifficultPoetTelling The Truth Author:Jane Kenyon
“In the hands of a great poet, words have ways of affecting us in ways we don't understand.” WayHandsPoetGreat Poet Author:Kenneth Branagh
“A writer is a person who cares what words mean, what they say, how they say it. Writers know words are their way towards truth and freedom, and so they use them with care, with thought, with fear, with delight. By using words well they strengthen their souls. Story-tellers and poets spend their lives learning that skill and art of using words well. And their words make the souls of their readers stronger, brighter, deeper.” KnowsWayWritingWellsMeanPersonsArtSoulStoriesUseCarePoetReaderSkillsStrongerDelightDeeperWho CaresBrighterLife LearningUsing Words Author:Ursula K. Le Guin