“…whether they write poems or don’t write poems, poets are best.”

“Recent Poetry”, p. 227
Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964 (1980)

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Do you have more details about the quote "…whether they write poems or don’t write poems, poets are best." by Randall Jarrell?
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Randall Jarrell 215
poet, critic, novelist, essayist 1914–1965

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“When a poet is being a poet — that is, when he is writing or thinking about writing — he cannot be concerned with anything but the making of a poem.”

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Context: When a poet is being a poet — that is, when he is writing or thinking about writing — he cannot be concerned with anything but the making of a poem. If the poem is to turn out well, the poet cannot have thought of whether it will be saleable, or of what its effect on the world should be; he cannot think of whether it will bring him honor, or advance a cause, or comfort someone in sorrow. All such considerations, whether silly or generous, would be merely intrusive; for, psychologically speaking, the end of writing is the poem itself.

“The poet writes his poem for its own sake, for the sake of that order of things in which the poem takes the place that has awaited it.”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“The Obscurity of the Poet”, p. 24
Poetry and the Age (1953)
Context: People always ask: For whom does the poet write? He needs only to answer, For whom do you do good? Are you kind to your daughter because in the end someone will pay you for being?... The poet writes his poem for its own sake, for the sake of that order of things in which the poem takes the place that has awaited it.

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“I prefer the absurdity of writing poems
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“It’s not easy to write a poem about a poem.”

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“For honesty is before honor; and though man must write his poems in sounding words, God's poems are printed best in the brave and silent duties of common life.”

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