“Look into thy heart and write!” is good advice, but not if interpreted to mean, “Look nowhere else!” The poet should know his world and, so far as his art is concerned, any kind of battering from his world is better than his own self-indulgent brooding.
Poetry Quotes
I care not one single curse for all the criticism that ever was canted or decanted, or recanted. Neither does the world. The world takes a poet as it finds him, and seats him above or below the salt. The world is as obstinate as a million mules, and will not turn its head on […]
When I was young I was amazed at Plutarch’s statement that the elder Cato began at the age of eighty to learn Greek. I am amazed no longer. Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long.
The people must grant a hearing to the best poets they have else they will never have better.
In my own work, I usually revise through forty or fifty drafts of a poem before I begin to feel content with it. Other poets take longer.
I could no more define poetry than a terrier can define a rat.
You must have a certain amount of maturity to be a poet. Seldom do sixteen-year-olds know themselves well enough.
Prose on certain occasions can bear a great deal of poetry; on the other hand, poetry sinks and swoons under a moderate weight of prose.
Do not ever read books about versification: no poet ever learnt it that way. If you are going to be a poet, it will come to you naturally and you will pick up all you need from reading poetry.
You will not find poetry anywhere unless you bring some of it with you.
