Poetry(71)

"You can tear a poem apart to see what makes it tick... You're back with the mystery of having been moved by words. The best craftsmanship always leaves holes and gaps... so that something that is not in the poem can creep, crawl, flash or thunder in."
Dylan Thomas

"The poet may be used as a barometer, but let us not forget that he is also part of the weather."
Lionel Trilling

"A poem is never finished, only abandoned."
Paul Valery

"The poet is in the end probably more afraid of the dogmatist who wants to extract the message from the poem and throw the poem away than he is of the sentimentalist who says, "Oh, just let me enjoy the poem.""
Robert Penn Warren

"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

"A poet dares be just so clear and no clearer... He unzips the veil from beauty, but does not remove it. A poet utterly clear is a trifle glaring."
E. B. White

"To have great poets, there must be great audiences."
Walt Whitman

"A poet can survive everything but a misprint."
Oscar Wilde

"He lives the poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realise."
Oscar Wilde

"All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling."
Oscar Wilde