“Some poets are more deeply involved than others in the raw experience which lies behind the poem and for them the act of composition is an act of self exploration with the definite goal of enlightenment rather than the ideally depersonalized construction of a beautiful and autonomous object.”Vernon Scannell Not Without Glory, 1976
“You can find out far more about a writer from his poems or fiction.. because in his stories or poems, his preoccupations, obsessions, moral standards, the quality of his intelligence, his loves, hates, aspirations, belief and fears.. insist on expression.”Vernon Scannell Tiger and the Rose, 1971
“The proper act of reading of a poem was not an act of passive submission but one of collaboration with its author.”Vernon Scannell Drums of Morning, 1992
“A word or a phrase or a line is not a poem. A poem is the exploration and shaping of an experience. A real poem demands intelligence, imagination, passion, understanding, experience and not least a knowledge of the craft.”Vernon Scannell A Proper Gentleman, 1977
“Well, here I suppose is my life, or part of it, by which I would wish to be judged… poems which have been written from a sense of compulsion, a real need to explore and articulate experiences which have been important to me.”Vernon Scannell Introductory Note
“As a writer, I must keep writing, poems can never be forced, the muses will not be raped, so I feel this kind of prose (autobiography), however inadequate, share some of the exploratory features of the poetic use of language.”Vernon Scannell Tiger and the Rose, 1971