Poem Quotes

Robert Frost had always said you mustn't think of the last line first, or it's only a fake poem, not a real one. I'm inclined to agree.
Howard Nemerov

Fake, Real, Said

I've never read a political poem that's accomplished anything. Poetry makes things happen, but rarely what the poet wants.
Howard Nemerov

Poetry, Political, Happen

There's no artist in this world that doesn't enjoy the dream that if they have bad reviews now, the story of Keats can redeem them, in their fantasy or imagination, in the future. I think Keats' poem 'Endymion' is a really difficult poem, and I'm not surprised that a lot of people pulled it apart in a way.
Jane Campion

Future, Bad, Enjoy

For many years, I thought a poem was a whisper overheard, not an aria heard.
Rita Dove

Thought, Heard, Whisper

I have a high guilt quotient. A poem can go through as many as 50 or 60 drafts. It can take from a day to two years-or longer.
Rita Dove

Through, Two, High

I keep the drafts of each poem in color-coded folders. I pick up the folders according to how I feel about that color that day.
Rita Dove

Keep, Color, Pick

In working on a poem, I love to revise. Lots of younger poets don't enjoy this, but in the process of revision I discover things.
Rita Dove

Love, Enjoy, Working

If you read quickly to get through a poem to what it means, you have missed the body of the poem.
M. H. Abrams

Through, Means, Read

I see the poem or the novel ending with an open door.
Michael Ondaatje

Door, Open, Novel

The second, and I think this is the much more overt and I think it is the main cause, I have been increasingly demonstrating or trying to demonstrate that every possible stance a critic, a scholar, a teacher can take towards a poem is itself inevitably and necessarily poetic.
Harold Bloom

Teacher, Trying, Possible

We hold that the most wonderful and splendid proof of genius is a great poem produced in a civilized age.
Thomas B. Macaulay

Age, Great, Wonderful

What is it precisely, that feeling of 'returning' from a poem? Something is lighter, softer, larger - then it fades, but never completely.
Ian Mcewan

Feeling, Returning, Fades

I read a poem every night, as others read a prayer.
Tahar Ben Jelloun

Night, Others, Prayer

The beautiful feeling after writing a poem is on the whole better even than after sex, and that's saying a lot.
Anne Sexton

Beautiful, Sex, Feeling

My favourite poem is called 'Roots and Wings' - it's a very moving poem about how if you've got real roots you can fly.
David Miliband

Moving, Real, Fly

Sometimes I write quickly, sometimes I spend several weeks on a single poem. I would really love for readers not to be able to guess which of the poems took so much work!
Wislawa Szymborska

Love, Work, Single

What inspires a poem for me is usually a moment.
Sherman Alexie

Moment, Inspires

The poem is a little myth of man's capacity of making life meaningful. And in the end, the poem is not a thing we see-it is, rather, a light by which we may see-and what we see is life.
Robert Penn Warren

Twitter was like a poem. It was rich, real and spontaneous. It really fit my style. In a year and a half, I tweeted 60,000 tweets, over 100,000 words. I spent a minimum eight hours a day on it, sometimes 24 hours.
Ai Weiwei

Real, Words, Rich

No other human being, no woman, no poem or music, book or painting can replace alcohol in its power to give man the illusion of real creation.
Marguerite Duras

Music, Power, Woman

With fiction, you can talk about plot, character and narrative, whereas a poem brings home the fact that everything that happens in a work of literature happens in terms of language. And this is daunting stuff to deal with.
Terry Eagleton

Work, Home, Character

Most students of literature can pick apart a metaphor or spot an ethnic stereotype, but not many of them can say things like: 'The poem's sardonic tone is curiously at odds with its plodding syntax.'
Terry Eagleton

Students, Literature, Pick

A translation is no translation, he said, unless it will give you the music of a poem along with the words of it.
John Millington Synge

Music, Words, Give

In the late 60s and early 70s, I did get interested in voices, and in narration and embodying the voice, making the poem sound like a real person talking.
Robert Morgan

Real, Person, Making

I love to compare different time frames. Poetry can evoke the time of the subject. By a very careful choice of words you can evoke an era, completely throw the poem into a different time scale.
Robert Morgan

Love, Time, Poetry

A poem in form still has to have voice, gesture, a sense of discovery, a metaphoric connection, as any poetry does.
Robert Morgan

Poetry, Sense, Voice

A poem records emotions and moods that lie beyond normal language, that can only be patched together and hinted at metaphorically.
Diane Ackerman

Lie, Together, Language

Scientific understanding is often beautiful, a profoundly aesthetic experience which gives pleasure not unlike the reading of a great poem.
Paul Nurse

Great, Experience, Beautiful

Well, it's a badge of honour for any self-respecting poet to be criticized by Auberon Waugh. But in a lot of ways my poems are very conventional, and it's no big deal for me to write a poem in either free verse or strict form; modern poets can, and do, do both.
Andrew Motion

Free, Big, Write

But in a lot of ways my poems are very conventional, and it's no big deal for me to write a poem in either free verse or strict form; modern poets can, and do, do both.
Andrew Motion

Free, Big, Write

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