
“a poem is a naked person... some people say that I am a poet”
Liner notes http://bobdylan.com/linernotes/bringing.html, Bringing It All Back Home (1965)
Introduction to Cromwell's Letters and Speeches (1845).
1840s
“a poem is a naked person... some people say that I am a poet”
Liner notes http://bobdylan.com/linernotes/bringing.html, Bringing It All Back Home (1965)
"Answers to Questions," from Mid-Century American Poets, edited by John Ciardi, 1950 [p. 171]
Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964 (1980)
National Book Award Acceptance Speech (1957)
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.
Lecture, "The Themes of Robert Frost" (1947)
“It is a part of the poet's work to show each man what he sees but does not know he sees.”
As quoted in The Reader's Digest Great Encyclopedic Dictionary Special Supplement (1966), p. 2047
"Quotes", The Educated Imagination (1963), Talk 3: Giants in Time
"What is a Poem?" from Anarchism Is Not Enough (London: Jonathan Cape, 1928)
Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book One: The Revelation of the Deity