Reading Poetry Quotes - Page 2

• I do believe that one's writing life needs to be kept separate from Po-Biz. Personally, I deal with this by not attending too many poetry readings, primarily reading dead poets or poems in translation, reading Poets & Writers only once for grant/contest information before I quickly dispose of it, and not reading Poetry Daily. Ever.

  Cate Marvin

  Believe, Reading, Writing

  Source: www.redividerjournal.org

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• When I first wanted to be a writer, I learned to write prose by reading poetry.

  Nicholson Baker

  Reading, Writing, Firsts

  "A life in writing" by Nicholas Wroe, www.theguardian.com. September 18, 2009.

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• The library was open for one hour after school let out. I hid there, looking at art books and reading poetry.

  Lynda Barry

  Art, Book, Reading

  The Onion Interview, www.avclub.com. December 8, 1999.

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• I was reading poetry to my girlfriends, and they were like, you're really good. You should go to some poetry readings or something. And I eventually went and got a, you know, somewhat of a name for myself and a little bit of a following.

  Jill Scott

  Girlfriend, Reading, Names

  "Jill Scott: Act The Part". "All Things Considered" with Laura Sullivan, www.npr.org. June 18, 2011.

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• It is absurd and anti-life to be part of a system that compels you to listen to a stranger reading poetry when you want to learn to construct buildings, or to sit with a stranger discussing the construction of buildings when you want to read poetry.

  John Taylor Gatto

  Life, Education, Teacher

  "Why Schools Don't Educate". John Taylor Gatto's New York City Teacher of the Year Acceptance Speech, www.naturalchild.org. January 31, 1990.

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• Reading poetry and watching cricket were the sum of my world, and the two are not so far apart as many aesthetes might believe.

  Donald Bradman

  Reading, Believe, Two

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• One of the qualities essential to being good at reading poetry is also one of the qualities essential to being good at life: a capacity for surprise. It’s easy to become so mired in our likes or dislikes that we can no longer recall that person who once responded to poems—and to people—without any preconceived notions of what we wanted them to be.

  Christian Wiman

  Reading, People, Quality

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• Not reading poetry amounts to a national pastime here.

  Phyllis McGinley

  Reading, Poetry, Pastime

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• Being Jewish, you didn't get into a sorority. So I really was much more outgoing and gregarious. I really didn't want to spend an Emily Dickinson adolescence reading poetry on gravestones, which I did.

  Betty Friedan

  Reading, Sorority, Want

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• I think many people (like myself) prefer to read poetry mixed with prose;
  it gives you more to go by; the conventions of poetry have been getting
  far off from normal life, so that to have a prose bridge makes
  reading poetry seem more natural.

  William Empson

  Reading, Thinking, Bridges

  William Empson (2000). “The complete poems”, Lane, Allen

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• I believe it's impossible to write good poetry without reading. Reading poetry goes straight to my psyche and makes me want to write. I meet the muse in the poems of others and invite her to my poems. I see over and over again, in different ways, what is possible, how the perimeters of poetry are expanding and making way for new forms.

  Denise Duhamel

  Believe, Reading, Writing

  Interview with Karla Huston, www.smartishpace.com. 2004.

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• Do not ever read books about versification: no poet ever learnt it that way. If you are going to be a poet, it will come to you naturally and you will pick up all you need from reading poetry.

  A. E. Housman

  Book, Reading, Needs

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• Sexual activity is driven by the same aims and motives as reading poetry or listening to music: to escape the limitations imposed by the need for particularity in the consciousness.

  Colin Wilson

  Reading, Listening, Needs

  "The Origins of the Sexual Impulse" by Colin Wilson, (p. 75), 1963.

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• I think vampires have gotten maybe a little bit silly in the last years where they're all wearing crushed velvet and reading poetry and making sweet love to their victims, you know, it's not really all that scary.

  Josh Hartnett

  Sweet, Silly, Reading

  "Interview: Josh Hartnett Talks 30 Days of Night". Interview with Joe Utichi, editorial.rottentomatoes.com. November 1, 2007.

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• Reading poetry and reading the great works of the canon that we were reading in the '60s and the '70s and '80s was mind altering.

  Anne Lamott

  Reading, Mind, Great Work

  Interview with Austin Allen, bigthink.com. April 6, 2010.

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• When you find it you become the secret addressee of a literary text and I felt that their reader had been left out of this experience of reading poetry or what the experience of poetry was.

  Edward Hirsch

  Reading, Secret, Reader

  "How to Read a Poem". Big Think interview, bigthink.com.

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• In Australia, not reading poetry is the national pastime.

  Phyllis McGinley

  Reading, Australia Day, Pastime

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• I'm a failed poet. Reading poetry helps me to see the world differently, and I try to infuse my prose with figurative language, which goes against the trend in fiction.

  Jesmyn Ward

  Reading, Trying, Fiction

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