“In social terms the identification of poet with teacher is now complete. The first question one poet now asks another upon being introduced is "Where do you teach?" The problem is not that poets teach. The campus is not a bad place for a poet to work. It's just a bad place for all poets to work. Society suffers by losing the imagination and vitality that poets brought to public culture. Poetry suffers when literary standards are forced to conform with institutional ones.”

—  Dana Gioia

Essays, Can Poetry Matter? (1991)

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 "In social terms the identification of poet with teacher is now complete. The first question one poet now asks another u…" by Dana Gioia?
Dana Gioia photo
Dana Gioia 80
American writer 1950

Related quotes

Umberto Eco photo

“All poets write bad poetry. Bad poets publish them, good poets burn them.”

Umberto Eco (1932–2016) Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist
Pierre Choderlos de Laclos photo

“One may quote bad poetry if it is by a great poet.”

Pierre Choderlos de Laclos book Les Liaisons dangereuses

On peut citer de mauvais vers, quand ils sont d'un grand poète.
Letter 4: Le Vicomte de Valmont to la Marquise de Merteuil. Trans. P.W.K. Stone (1961). http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Les_Liaisons_dangereuses_-_Lettre_4
Les liaisons dangereuses (1782)

Frank Lloyd Wright photo

“The scientist has marched in and taken the place of the poet. But one day somebody will find the solution to the problems of the world and remember, it will be a poet, not a scientist.”

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) American architect (1867-1959)

As quoted in The Star (1959) and Morrow's International Dictionary of Contemporary Quotations (1982) by Jonathon Green.

T.S. Eliot photo

“Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.”

T.S. Eliot book The Sacred Wood

Source: "Philip Massinger", a biographical essay in The Sacred Wood (1920)

Samuel Butler (poet) photo

“And poets by their sufferings grow;
As if there were no more to do,
To make a poet excellent,
But only want and discontent.”

Samuel Butler (poet) (1612–1680) poet and satirist

"Miscellaneous Thoughts" in The Poems of Samuel Butler, Volume 2, Press of C. Whittingham, 1822, p. 269
"Fragments", reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“I didn’t know at that time Emily Dickinson’s great definition, her 'Publication is not the business of poets’; being a poet is all, being known as a poet is nothing.”

John Fowles book Daniel Martin

Daniel Martin (1977)

Thomas Dekker photo

“ONAELIA: What sort of poets are there?
POET: Two sorts lady: The great poets and the small poets.
ONAELIA: Great and small! Which do you call the great? The fat ones?”

Thomas Dekker The Noble Spanish Soldier

The Noble Spanish Soldier (1622)

“I was introduced to Langston Hughes, who became one of my favorite poets…I mean, he was a poet; he wasn’t about words, he was a poet, he had rhythm.”

Pedro Pietri (1944–2004) Puerto Rican writer

On starting off in poetry (as quoted in the book “Race and the Modern Artist” https://books.google.com/books?id=4XY8DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA208&lpg=PA208&dq)

“The rhythm of poetry and the routine of work are interdependent for some poets”

Dennis O'Driscoll (1954–2012) Irish poet, critic

'Sing for the Taxman-Poetry Magazine-Poetry Foundation May 1 2009
Poetry Quotes

G. K. Chesterton photo

“He was, if ever there was one, an inspired poet. I do not think it the highest sort of poet. And you never discover who is an inspired poet until the inspiration goes.”

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist

Source: The Victorian Age in Literature (1913), On Algernon Charles Swinburne Ch. III: The Great Victorian Poets (p. 95)

Related topics