“Society's dark hull drifts further and further away. It is this place - the place of our separation, our distinction - that much of his poetry occupies.”
Topic
poetry
850 quotes
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“Poetry says the things that I can't say. I read a lot, but I never write it.”
“Conversation may be compared to a lyre with seven chords - philosophy, art, poetry, love, scandal, and the weather.”
“Poetry is one of the few nasty childhood habits I've managed to grow out of.”
“I despair of ever writing excellent poetry.”
“I will not leave a corner of my consciousness covered up, but saturate myself with the strange and extraordinary new conditions of this life, and it will all refine itself into poetry later on.”
“Nobody ever told me what to read, or ever put poetry in my way.”
“If I do a poetry reading I want people to walk out and say they feel better for having been there - not because you've done a comedy performance but because you're talking about your father dying or having young children, things that touch your soul.”
“Whereas with poetry no one has to show anybody really, and you don't have to tell anyone you're doing it.”
“What she did was to open our eyes to details of country life such as teaching us names of wild flowers and getting us to draw and paint and learn poetry.”
“Well, if this is poetry, I'm certainly never going to write any myself.”
“Poetry had far better imply things than preach them directly... in the open pulpit her voice grows hoarse and fails.”
“I think that the job of poetry, its political job, is to refresh the idea of justice, which is going dead in us all the time.”
“All I knew about Ethiopia was from a few records that I like, as well as what I read about the famine. But you get there and it's another world. It's filled with art and music and poetry and intellectuals and writers - all kinds of people.”
“But poetry is a way of language, it is not its subject or its maker's background or interests or hobbies or fixations. It is nearer to utterance than history.”
“Some Marines made fun of the fact that I had done plays and studied poetry, but then I won the award for physical training.”
“Well, I like to write poetry. I'm a published poet.”
“Well I guess the plan was to write poetry and publish books and make a living from writing poetry. That was a pretty ambitious plan I guess.”
“Well - I started writing - probably in the early 60s and by say '65-'66 I had read most of the poetry that had been published - certainly in the 20 years prior to that.”
“There's one of my new poems actually - is a good example of where my poetry has ended up. My earlier river poetry was more like a cross between Shelley and Dylan Thomas.”
“I was kind of an outcast in school 'cause I always kept to myself and was writing poetry and then going on tour with my brother band all the time, so kids didn't know what to make of me.”
“I wish you would read a little poetry sometimes. Your ignorance cramps my conversation.”
“I used to joke that if acting didn't work out, poetry was my commonsense fallback.”
“Literature is a state of culture, poetry is a state of grace, before and after culture.”