John Hollander (1929–2013) American poet
introduction-John Hollander ed.'Committed to Memory' Riverhead Books New York 1996
1970s, Culture Is Our Business (1970)
John Hollander (1929–2013) American poet
introduction-John Hollander ed.'Committed to Memory' Riverhead Books New York 1996
Alice Oswald (1966) British poet
Get Writing (2004), as quoted in Modern Women Poets (2005) by Deryn Rees-Jones, p. 392
Context: Poems, like dreams, have a visible subject and an invisible one. The invisible one is the one you can't choose, the one that writes itself. Not a message that comes at the end of the poem, more like a pathological condition that deforms every word – a resonance, a manner of speaking, a nervous tic, a pressure. And this invisible subject only shows up when you're speaking the language that you speak when no one is there to correct or applaud you. Remembering that language is the whole skill of writing well.
Ryōkan (1758–1831) Japanese Buddhist monk
Variant translation:<br>Who says my poems are poems?<br>My poems are not poems.<br>After you know my poems are not poems,<br>Then we can begin to discuss poetry! <br class="br"> "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 <br class="br">Dewdrops on a Lotus Leaf : Zen Poems of Ryokan (1993)
Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) American author, poet, editor and literary critic
The Poetic Principle (1850)
“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”
“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
“You must believe: a poem is a holy thing — a good poem, that is.”
Theodore Roethke (1908–1963) American poet
Poetry and Craft (1965)
“…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)
“Inspiration comes within a framework. A poem that gets out of hand is not a poem.”
John Hollander (1929–2013) American poet