“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

“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.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "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 …" by Randall Jarrell?
Randall Jarrell photo
Randall Jarrell 215
poet, critic, novelist, essayist 1914–1965

Related quotes

“Emerson writes in his Journal that all men try their hands at poetry, but few know which their poems are. The poets are not those who write poems, but those who know which of the things they write are poems.”

Carl Andre (1935) American artist

Quote from a 1962 essay by Andre; as quoted in ' Objects Are What We Aren't' https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/02/26/objects-are-what-we-arent/, by Andy Battaglia; The Parish Review, February 26, 2015

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

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

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

Edgar Allan Poe photo

“There neither exists nor can exist any work more thoroughly dignified — more supremely noble than this very poem — this poem per se — this poem which is a poem and nothing more — this poem written solely for the poem's sake.”

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) American author, poet, editor and literary critic

The Poetic Principle (1850)

Northrop Frye photo

“The human mind is [a poet's] individual mind at first, but as soon as he writes a poem it becomes our [the readers'] minds too. There is no self-expression in [a poet's] poem, because once the poem is there the individual [poet] has disappeared. …there is really no such thing as self-expression in literature.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

"Quotes", The Educated Imagination (1963), Talk 3: Giants in Time

Alexander Pope photo

“I would not be like those Authors, who forgive themselves some particular lines for the sake of a whole Poem, and vice versa a whole Poem for the sake of some particular lines. I believe no one qualification is so likely to make a good writer, as the power of rejecting his own thoughts.”

Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet

Preface
The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope (1717)

“We all write poems; it is simply that poets are the ones who write in words.”

John Fowles book The French Lieutenant's Woman

Source: The French Lieutenant's Woman

Felix Adler photo

“The right for the right's sake is the motto which everyone should take for his own life.”

Felix Adler (1851–1933) German American professor of political and social ethics, rationalist, and lecturer

Section 9 : Ethical Outlook
Founding Address (1876), Life and Destiny (1913)
Context: The right for the right's sake is the motto which everyone should take for his own life. With that as a standard of value we can descend into our hearts, appraise ourselves, and determine in how far we already are moral beings, in how far not yet.

Richard Wilbur photo

“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.”

Richard Wilbur (1921–2017) American poet

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.

Erica Jong photo

“It takes a spasm of love to write a poem.”

Erica Jong (1942) Novelist, poet, memoirist, critic

How to Save Your Own Life (1977)

Related topics