Should ever the fine-eyed maid to me be kind; Ah! surely it must be whenever I find; Some flowery spot, sequestered, wild, romantic; That often must have seen a poet frantic.
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Reading it aloud – poetry is, after all, just written down speech – allow the poem to have a moment to exist. The reader has to put as much care into the reading of the poem as the poet has into writing it. In the relationship between poet, poem and reader, every element has to pull its weight.
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The art of writing is mysterious; the opinions we hold are ephemeral , and I prefer the Platonic idea of the Muse to that of Poe, who reasoned, or feigned to reason, that the writing of a poem is an act of the intelligence. It never fails to amaze me that the classics hold a romantic theory of poetry, and a romantic poet a classical theory.
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There exist only three beings worthy of respect the priest, the soldier, the poet. To know, to kill, to create.
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A poet can read. A poet can write. A poet is African in Africa, or Irish in Ireland, or French on the left bank of Paris, or white in Wisconsi...
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The poet is born with the capacity of arranging words in such a way that something of the quality of the graces and inspirations he has received can make itself felt to other human beings in the white spaces, so to speak, between the lines of his verse. This is a great and precious gift; but if the poet remains content with his gift, if he persists in worshipping the beauty in art and nature without going on to make himself capable, through selflessness, of apprehending Beauty as it is in the divine Ground, then he is only an idolater.
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A poet who has not produced a good poem before he is twenty-five, we may conclude cannot, and never will do so.
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There exist only three beings worthy of respect: the priest, the soldier, the poet. To know, to kill, to create.
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Every poem can be considered in two ways--as what the poet has to say, and as a thing which he makes.
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If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not a poet enough to call forth its riches; for to the creator there is no poverty and no poor indifferent place.
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The poet is the priest of the invisible.
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Perhaps there is a degree of perception at which what is real and what is imagines are one: a state of clairvoyant observation, accessible or possibly accessible to the poet or, say, the acutest poet.
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The very idea of a bird is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet. A bird seems to be at the top of the scale, so vehement and intense his life. . . . The beautiful vagabonds, endowed with every grace, masters of all climes, and knowing no bounds -- how many human aspirations are realised in their free, holiday-lives -- and how many suggestions to the poet in their flight and song!
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Every time a poet writes a poem it’s like it’s the first time. When you’ve finished a poem, you don’t know if you’ll ever write another one. Some poems arrive with a weight that’s more significant than other poems and you know it will take a lot of care to do it justice. Poetry, for so long now, has been the way I relate to everything. It’s like a companion. I can’t imagine ever being separated from it.
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An Eastern poet, Ali Ben Abu Taleb, writes with sad truth, He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare, And he who has one enemy shall meet him everywhere
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She opened up a book of poems and handed it to me written by an Italian poet from the 13th century and every one of them words rang true and glowed like burning coal pouring off of every page like it was written in my soul from me to you.
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If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches.
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The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it.
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I think a poet is anybody who wouldn't call himself a poet
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Each memorable verse of a true poet has two or three times the written content.
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Every English poet should master the rules of grammar before he attempts to bend or break them.
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If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches.
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By listening to his language of his locality the poet begins to learn his craft. It is his function to lift, by use of imagination and the language he hears, the material conditions and appearances of his environment to the sphere of the intelligence where they will have new currency.
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In order to master the unruly torrent of life the learned man meditates, the poet quivers, and the political hero erects the fortress of his will.
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The poet gives us his essence, but prose takes the mold of the body and mind.
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By listening to his language of his locality the poet begins to learn his craft. It is his function to lift, by use of imagination and the language he hears, the material conditions and appearances of his environment to the sphere of the intelligence where they will have new currency.
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The player envies only the player, the poet envies only the poet.
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American poetry, like American painting, is always personal with an emphasis on the individuality of the poet.
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None merits the name of Creator but God and the poet.
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Ah wretched We, Poets of Earth! but Thou Wert Living the same Poet which thou'rt Now,...
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