“... woman is frequently praised as the more "creative" sex. She does not need to make poems, it is argued; she has no drive to make poems, because she is privileged to make babies. A pregnancy is as fulfilling as, say, Yeats' Sailing to Byzantium.... To call a child a poem may be a pretty metaphor, but it is a slur on the labor of art.” NeedsMayChildrenDoeArtPoetrySexCreativityCreativePoetBabyLaborMetaphorMotherhoodPregnancyFulfillingPrivilegedSailingSlursYeatsByzantium Author:Cynthia Ozick
“But I liked Yeats! That wild Irishman. I really loved his love of language, his flow. His chaotic ideas seemed to me just the right thing for a poet. Passion! He was always on the right side. He may be wrongheaded, but his heart was always on the right side. He wrote beautiful poetry.” HeartMayIdeasBeautifulPassionLanguageSidesPoetFlowRight ThingHis LoveChaoticIrishmenYeatsBeautiful Poetry Author:Chinua Achebe
“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 think the whole emphasis in England, in universities, on practical criticism (but not that so much as on historical criticism, knowing what period a line comes from) this is almost paralysing. In America, in University, we read - what? - T. S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Yeats, that is where we began. Shakespeare flaunted in the background. I'm not sure I agree with this, but I think that' for the young poet, the writing poet, it is not quite so frightening to go to university in America as it is in England, for these reasons.” ThinkingWritingReasonWholeAmericaYoungLinesKnowingPoetPeriodsCriticismEnglandAgreeHistoricalUniversityPracticalsBackgroundsNot SureFrighteningEmphasisDylanEliotYeats Author:Sylvia Plath
“Alister McGrath has now written two books with my name in the title. The poet W. B. Yeats, when asked to say something about bad poets who made a living by parasitizing him, wrote the splendid line, 'was there ever dog that praised his fleas?” MadeTwoBookNamesLinesWrittenDogPoetTitlesSplendidFleasYeats Author:Richard Dawkins