“We all write poems; it is simply that poets are the ones who write in words.”
Source: The French Lieutenant's Woman
“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.”
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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Carl Andre 32
American artist 1935Related quotes
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.
“…whether they write poems or don’t write poems, poets are best.”
Randall Jarrell
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“Recent Poetry”, p. 227
Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964 (1980)
“He who would write heroic poems should make his whole life a heroic poem.”
Thomas Carlyle
(1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher
Life of Schiller.
1820s, Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1827–1855)
Randall Jarrell
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"Answers to Questions," from Mid-Century American Poets, edited by John Ciardi, 1950 [p. 171]
Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964 (1980)
“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
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)
“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”
“There's two kinds of women--those you write poems about and those you don't.”
Jeffrey McDaniel
(1967) American writer
Northrop Frye
(1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist
"Quotes", The Educated Imagination (1963), Talk 3: Giants in Time