“Conventional wisdom notwithstanding, there is no reason either in football or in poetry why the two should not meet in a man's life if he has the weight and cares about the words.”
Topic
poetry
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“If we ask a vague question, such as, 'What is poetry?' we expect a vague answer, such as, 'Poetry is the music of words,' or 'Poetry is the linguistic correction of disorder.'”
“Probably all the attention to poetry results in some value, though the attention is more often directed to lesser than to greater values.”
“I am grateful for - though I can't keep up with - the flood of articles, theses, and textbooks that mean to share insight concerning the nature of poetry.”
“Once every five hundred years or so, a summary statement about poetry comes along that we can't imagine ourselves living without.”
“Poetry leads us to the unstructured sources of our beings, to the unknown, and returns us to our rational, structured selves refreshed.”
“The poet exposes himself to the risk. All that has been said about poetry, all that he has learned about poetry, is only a partial assurance.”
“That's a wonderful change that's taken place, and so most poetry today is published, if not directly by the person, certainly by the enterprise of the poet himself, working with his friends.”
“Besides the actual reading in class of many poems, I would suggest you do two things: first, while teaching everything you can and keeping free of it, teach that poetry is a mode of discourse that differs from logical exposition.”
“I realized poetry's the thing that I can do 'cause I can stick at it and work with tremendous intensity.”
“The irony is, going to work every day became the subject of probably my best poetry.”
“Meet some people who care about poetry the way you do. You'll have that readership. Keep going until you know you're doing work that's worthy. And then see what happens. That's my advice.”
“Now I think poetry will save nothing from oblivion, but I keep writing about the ordinary because for me it's the home of the extraordinary, the only home.”
“My mother carried on and supported us her ambition had been to write poetry and songs.”
“My art and poetry is very political now. Because you've got to find that truth within you and express yourself. Somewhere out there, I know, there will be people who will listen.”
“For whatever reason, people, including very well-educated people or people otherwise interested in reading, do not read poetry.”
“That's one of the great things about poetry one realises that one does one's little turn - that you're just part of the great crop, as it were.”
“The other side of it is that, despite all that, people reach out to poetry at the key moments in their lives.”
“We simply have not kept in touch with poetry.”
“I don't live for poetry. I live far more than anybody else does.”
“I thought we were gonna open up the world of poetry and music to all kinds of things, and yet, I can't really think of anyone who's done anything like it since.”
“I guess I wanted to leave America for awhile. It wasn't that I wanted to become an expatriate, or just never come back, I needed some breathing room. I'd already been translating French poetry, I'd been to Paris once before and liked it very much, and so I just went.”
“I was always interested in French poetry sort of as a sideline to my own work, I was translating contemporary French poets. That kind of spilled out into translation as a way to earn money, pay for food and put bread on the table.”
“There is the view that poetry should improve your life. I think people confuse it with the Salvation Army.”