In the infancy of society every author is necessarily a poet.
Poetry Quotes
Poets tell many lies.
No poet I’ve ever heard of has written an ode to a load of manure.
They learn in suffering what they teach in song.
Of all my generation, he (T. S. Eliot) most admired Auden, but once when we were praising Auden’s criticism, he said: “All the same, he’s not a scholar.” – “Why?” – “I was reading an Introduction by him to a selection of Tennyson’s poems, in which he says that Tennyson is the stupidest poet in […]
The finest cowboy poems rarely cut it on the printed page. They must be recited the way they are written, from the noggin, with feeling. They’re like fine wine. They must breathe, especially if they’ve been bottled up too long.
Thy verses are eternal, O my friend, For he who reads them, reads them to no end.
I was promised on a time To have reason for my rhyme; From that time unto this season, I receiv’d nor rhyme nor reason. (According to legend, Queen Elizabeth promised Spenser 100 pounds for a poem. When the Royal Treasurer, Lord Burghley, objected to the expense, the Queen replied, “Then give him what is reason.” […]
Whatever the poets pretend, it is plain they give immortality to none but themselves; it is Homer and Virgil we reverence and admire, not Achilles and Aeneas.
Every good poet includes a critic, but the reverse will not hold.
