|
|
A poem should be a gift, not a grab.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jon Corelis
|
|
A bad poem says, "This is who I am." A good poem says, "This is who you are."
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jon Corelis
|
|
If you had a happy childhood, you spend the rest of your life trying to get back to it; if you had an unhappy childhood, you spend the rest of your life trying to get out of it
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jon Corelis
|
|
W. H. Auden said that poetry makes nothing happen. What he meant, I think, is that poetry makes everything happen.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jon Corelis
|
|
A poem is as much written by the reader when it is read as it is written by the writer when it is written.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jon Corelis
|
|
Too many conversations begin "Please be honest" and end "How dare you say that!"
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jon Corelis
|
|
If you are writing a poem, you are, or should be, writing a play. All poetry is, by the fundamental nature of poetry, dramatic poetry.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jon Corelis
|
|
There is no point in writing poems that are good: they need to be astonishing.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jon Corelis
|
|
If you would speak truly, first learn to hate your own voice.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jon Corelis
|
|
Just because your emotions are as good as anyone else's doesn't mean your poetry is going to be as good as anyone else's.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jon Corelis
|
|
It takes a lot skill, thought, and hard work to make a poem sound convincingly spontaneous.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jon Corelis
|
|
We should not consider poetry as an alternative to thinking, we should consider poetry as a way of thinking.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jon Corelis
|
|
That which we cannot speak of, we must sing.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jon Corelis
|
|
A poem should be considered the script of a role in a play which the reader is auditioning for.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jon Corelis
|
|
The speaker of a poem, if it is an effective poem, is a third self shared by the poet and the reader.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jon Corelis
|
|
My poems are not attempts to express myself, they are attempts to express you.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jon Corelis
|
|
Poetry should express emotion with structure and restraint, because, paradoxically, structure can make the expression of emotion seem more, not less, spontaneous, and restraint can make emotional expression seem more, not less, intense.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jon Corelis
|
|
"A good poem is a set of words expressing deep emotion, so if I write down words expressing my deep emotion, it will be a good poem." Sorry, it doesn't work like that.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jon Corelis
|
|
A confessional poem will never be a successful one because it ignores Emily Dickinson’s directive: “Tell all the truth but tell it slant.”
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jon Corelis
|
|
The things I post here as my Quotes about poetry are not intended as rules to be followed but as propositions to be discussed. It is also important to understand that they have been developed a posteriori, not a priori.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jon Corelis
|
|
When someone says that the poetry of Shakespeare, Shelley, Keats, etc. is boring I don't know what to think of them, any more than I would know what to think of someone who said that love is boring.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jon Corelis
|
|
If you make boring cliches rhyme, they are still boring cliches.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jon Corelis
|
|
Shakespeare is like the sun: he covers everything, judges nothing.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jon Corelis
|
|
Any poem involves three people: 1) the person who wrote it, 2) the person who speaks it, and 3) the person who reads it. To confuse the first person with the second person is to guarantee the poem won't be successful, which is why so few successful poems are being written today. The poet's goal instead should be to bring the second and third persons as close together as possible.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jon Corelis
|
|
The poet's proper function is to invoke the gods.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jon Corelis
|
|
To call someone who expects poetry to be skilled and serious art a "poetry snob" is like calling someone who doesn't want to live on Whoppers and Slurpees a "food snob."
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jon Corelis
|
|
"Instagram Poet" : Literature : : "Shower Singer" : Music
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jon Corelis
|
|
I hate poems that demand to be liked.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jon Corelis
|
|
The Iliad may be the most complex poem ever created, but its ultimate meaning, is, I think, fairly plain: if there is such a thing as justice, it is not for us, but for the gods, and if the gods should offer us a glimpse of it, it will turn out not to be what we thought it would be.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jon Corelis
|
|
A poet should resist the irresistible temptation to preach.
Go to Quote / Comment | by Jon Corelis
|
|