“I know that any discussion of the relation of this poem to its historical materials is, in one perspective, irrelevant to its value; and it could be totally accurate as history and still not worth a dime as a poem. I am trying to write a poem, not a history, and therefore have no compunction about tampering with non-essential facts. But poetry is more than fantasy and is committed to the obligation of trying to say something, however obliquely, about the human condition. Therefore, a poem dealing with history is no more at liberty to violate what the writer takes to be the spirit of his history than it is at liberty to violate what he takes to be the nature of the human heart. What he takes those things to be is, of course, his ultimate gamble.”

Foreword, Brother to Dragons: A Tale in Verse and Voices — A New Version (1979)

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Robert Penn Warren 49
American poet, novelist, and literary critic 1905–1989

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“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.”

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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

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“Who says my poems are poems?
My poems are not poems.
When you know that my poems are not poems,
Then we can speak of poetry.”

Ryōkan (1758–1831) Japanese Buddhist monk

Variant translation:
Who says my poems are poems?
My poems are not poems.
After you know my poems are not poems,
Then we can begin to discuss poetry!
"Zen Poetics of Ryokan" in Simply Haiku: A Quarterly Journal of Japanese Short Form Poetry (Summer 2006) http://www.hermitary.com/articles/ryokan_poetics.html
Dewdrops on a Lotus Leaf : Zen Poems of Ryokan (1993)

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“It’s not easy to write a poem about a poem.”

Dejan Stojanovic (1959) poet, writer, and businessman

“Is It Possible to Write a Poem?,” p. 111
The Sun Watches the Sun (1999), Sequence: “Is It Possible to Write a Poem”

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Robert Penn Warren photo

“If, in the middle of World War II, a general could be writing a poem, then maybe I was not so irrelevant after all. Maybe the general was doing more for victory by writing a poem than he would be by commanding an army. At least, he might be doing less harm.”

Robert Penn Warren (1905–1989) American poet, novelist, and literary critic

Acceptance speech for the 1970 National Medal for Literature, New York, New York (2 December 1970)
Context: If, in the middle of World War II, a general could be writing a poem, then maybe I was not so irrelevant after all. Maybe the general was doing more for victory by writing a poem than he would be by commanding an army. At least, he might be doing less harm. By applying the same logic to my own condition, I decided that I might be relevant in what I called a negative way. I have clung to this concept ever since — negative relevance. In moments of vain-glory I even entertain the possibility that if my concept were more widely accepted, the world might be a better place to live in. There are a lot of people who would make better citizens if they were content to be just negatively relevant.

Edgar Allan Poe photo

“…I engage with poetry musically. I think I hear the music of the poem before I put words to it. The poem comes to me as it were a song more than a string of words or images. If I can’t transport that musical quality to the poem, then the poem doesn’t exist for me…”

Lucha Corpi (1945)

On how she favors a musical quality to her poetry in the book Truthtellers of the Times: Interviews with Contemporary Women Poets https://books.google.com/books?id=LkVO9mmfwZYC&pg=PA23&lpg=PA23&dq

Wisława Szymborska photo

“I prefer the absurdity of writing poems
to the absurdity of not writing poems.”

Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) Polish writer

Source: Nothing Twice: Selected Poems

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