Poet Quotes - Page 39

• In the beginning, said a Persian poet Allah took a rose, a lily, a dove, a serpent, a little honey, a Dead Sea apple, and a handful of clay. When he looked at the amalgram it was a woman.

  William Sharp

  Women, Apples, Sea

  William Sharp, Elizabeth Amelia Sharp (1912). “Selected Writings”

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• In days of yore, the poet's pen From wing of bird was plunder'd, Perhaps of goose, but now and then, From Jove's own eagle sunder'd. But now, metallic pens disclose Alone the poet's numbers; In iron inspiration glows, Or with the poet slumbers.

  John Adams

  Inspiration, Iron, Numbers

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• Poets and monks... We're both sort of peripheral to the world.

  Kathleen Norris

  World, Monk

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• Sure there are poets which did never dream Upon Parnassus, nor did taste the stream Of Helicon; we therefore may suppose Those made not poets, but the poets those.

  John Denham

  Dream, May, Taste

  Edmund Waller, Sir John Denham, Wentworth Dillon Earl of Roscommon, Samuel Johnson (1822). “The Poems of Edmund Waller”, p.111

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• Love seems to beautify and inspire all nature. It raises the earthly caterpillar into the ethereal butterfly, it paints the feathers in spring, it lights the glowworm's lamp, it wakens the song of birds, and inspires the poet's lay. Even inanimate Nature seems to feel the spell, and flowers glow with the richest colours.

  John Lubbock

  Song, Spring, Flower

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• For a man to become a poet (witness Petrarch and Dante), he must be in love, or miserable.

  Lord Byron

  Men, Miserable, Witness

  "Journal of the Conversations of Lord Byron". Book by Thomas Medwin, 1823.

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• The duty of a lyrical poet is not to express or explain, it is to intensify life.

  James Stephens

  Lyrical, Duty

  James Stephens, Shirley Stevens Mulligan (2006). “The Poems of James Stephens”, A Colin Smythe Publication

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• God, eldest of Poets.

  William Watson

  Eldest

  "England, my England" in "Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations" by Jehiel Keeler Hoyt, (pp. 605-609), 1922.

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• He saw wan Woman toil with famished eyes; He saw her bound, and strove to sing her free. He saw her fall'n; and wrote "The Bridge of Sighs"; And on it crossed to immortality.

  William Watson

  Fall, Eye, Bridges

  William Watson, “Thomas Hood”

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• Threadbare his songs seem now, to lettered ken: They were worn threadbare next the hearts of men.

  William Watson

  Song, Heart, Men

  William Watson (1917). “Retrogression: and other poems”

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• A dreamer of the common dreams, A fisher in familiar streams, He chased the transitory gleams That all pursue; But on his lips the eternal themes Again were new.

  William Watson

  Dream, Gleam, Lips

  Sir William Watson, John Alfred Spender (1905). “The Poems of William Watson”

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• I've always wanted to be a poet at the beginning. I would look at my grandparents' books and my parents' books. And in my family, a typical aspirational Jewish family, being a writer was very much exalted, and it seemed impossible to me, that I could ever do something like that.

  Mark Leyner

  Book, Grandparent, Typical

  "Whit Stillman and Mark Leyner on Their First Projects in 15 Years". Interview with Matthew Perpetua, www.rollingstone.com. April 6, 2012.

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• I think it's the responsibility of every human being, not just those who wear the identity of poet, activist, voter, religious person... it's the responsibility of every person. Our responsibility is to use our intelligence as clearly and coherently as we possibly can.

  John Trudell

  Religious, Responsibility, Thinking

  Source: www.raintaxi.com

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• I wanted to be a poet. I had a really romantic idea about what that would mean. My parents knew some poets, and I liked how they dressed and acted, but I didn't really acknowledge that I only liked reading some bits of poetry while I was peeing or something.

  Lena Dunham

  Reading, Mean, Ideas

  Interview with Claire Danes, www.interviewmagazine.com. April 1, 2012.

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• He led quite a great life, ... He was an Old Testament figure railing against the establishment - a Jewish guy from New York who became a Buddhist, a poet, a musician.

  Tom Hayden

  Buddhist, New York, Guy

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• Many people I know - writers, poets - they have all been sentenced not once but sometimes three times after they come out. They serve five or six years, come out another time, and then nine years. Come out again, 12 years. Only because they have a different opinion. They are innocent people, they have beautiful minds, beautiful hearts.

  Ai Weiwei

  Beautiful, Heart, Years

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• I always admire writers. My father was a writer, a poet. I always admire people who can clearly state their mind.

  Ai Weiwei

  Father, People, Mind

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• You can publish a poem you think is a very important poem, and you don't hear a word from anyone. [...] You can publish a book of poetry by dropping it off a cliff and waiting to hear an echo. Quite often, you'll never hear a thing. So doing that, using older work, puts it in a context, and that sort of forces the reader to realize what its importance is-if it has any. Everything needs a context. You're not going to recognize a poet unless you have a context.

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti

  Book, Thinking, Echoes

  Interview with Christopher Bollen, www.interviewmagazine.com. December 1, 2012.

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• Everyone is a poet at 16, but how many are poets at 50? Generally, people seem to get more conservative as they age, but in my case, I seem to have gotten more radical.

  Fidel Castro

  People, Age, Conservative

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• A good poem has its own life. It's like bringing a child into the world. You, the poet, birthed the child, but the child will surprise you continually. I think a work of art has its own aliveness, its own future.

  David Whyte

  Art, Children, Thinking

  "Courageous Conversations: An Interview with David Whyte". Interview with Kim Rosen, spiritualityhealth.com. December 8, 2014.

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• In England especially, poetry's woven into the background fabric of society. And in Ireland, it's in the foreground. The place of the poet in Irish society is enormous. If you say you're a poet in Ireland, you'd better know what you're doing, because the standard and the expectations are incredibly high.

  David Whyte

  Expectations, Fabric, England

  "Courageous Conversations: An Interview with David Whyte". Interview with Kim Rosen, spiritualityhealth.com. December 8, 2014.

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• The workplace needs the poet's gift. But the poet also needs to be educated about the workplace. You're not just coming in to do your art, you're actually making yourself vulnerable. You yourself are not God's gift to truth. You have to hazard yourself in their world, especially because you're inviting people to do the same. It's all about become visible, becoming incarnate, becoming here and now and yet with our eyes on a future horizon; holding the conversation you were meant to hold.

  David Whyte

  Art, Eye, People

  "Courageous Conversations: An Interview with David Whyte". Interview with Kim Rosen, spiritualityhealth.com. December 8, 2014.

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• Every poet has a certain amount of "stuff." That's what you draw from for imagery. The more stuff you know well, not simply intellectually but sensually, emotionally, intimately, the wider the pool from which you draw.

  Marge Piercy

  Stuff, Pool, Certain

  Interview with Charlotte Templin, margepiercy.com. May 2004.

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• One of the best gifts you can give a poet is to present them with field guides - to rocks, to stars, to birds, to wildflowers, to trees and bushes, to butterflies, to reptiles and amphibians. Because when you look at anything long enough to be able to identify it, you see far more clearly and you make a tiny beginning at understanding the life, the place, the history of that bird or rock or mammal.

  Marge Piercy

  Stars, Butterfly, Rocks

  Source: margepiercy.com

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• Each poet probably has his or her own cupboard of magnets. For some, it is cars; for others, works of art, or certain patterns of form or sound; for others, certain stories or places, Philip Levine's Detroit, Gwendolyn Brooks's Chicago, Seamus Heaney's time-tunneled, familied Ireland.

  Jane Hirshfield

  Art, Car, Sound

  "Of Amplitude There Is No Scraping Bottom: An Interview with Jane Hirshfield". Interview with Rebecca Olson, tinhouse.com. March 16, 2015.

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