“I first read the poems in my early youth, with an ardent credulity that remained unshaken for many years of my life; and with a pleasure to which even the triumphant satisfaction of detecting the imposture is comparatively nothing. The enthusiasm with which I read and studied the poems, enabled me afterwards, when my suspicions were once awakened, to trace and expose the deception with greater success. Yet, notwithstanding the severity of minute criticism, I can still peruse them as a wild and wonderful assemblage of imitations, with which the fancy is often pleased and gratified, even when the judgment condemns them most.”

— James Macpherson

Malcolm Laing, The Poems of Ossian, Vol. I (1805), p. 441.
Criticism

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James Macpherson 46

Scottish writer, poet, translator, and politician 1736–1796

Robert Frank (1924–2019) American photographer and filmmaker

“I was overjoyed when I read Yevtushenko's "Babi Yar"; the poem astounded me. It astounded thousands of people…People knew about Babi Yar before Yevtushenko's poem, but they were silent. And when they read the poem, the silence was broken. Art destroys silence.”

Yevgeny Yevtushenko (1932–2017) Russian poet, film director, teacher

Solomon Volkov (ed.), Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich (New York: Limelight, 2006) pp. 158-9.
Criticism

“I know I am in the grip of a true poem when I can hardly bear to read it calmly at first.”

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

Poetry Quotes

“When I first read the dictionary, I thought it was a long poem about everything.”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

I Have A Pony (1985)

“It was then I began to on my bed and stare out at the nibbling squirrels, and to make up poems from intense abstraction, hour after unmarked hour, imagination scarcely faltering once, rhythm hardly skipping a beat, while my sisters called me, suns rose and fell, and the poems I made, which I never remembered, were the first and last of that time….”

Laurie Lee book Cider with Rosie

Source: Cider with Rosie (1959), p. 280. (The last sentence of the book)

“I delay typing as long as possible. When I read a poem in longhand I'm hearing it, when in typescript I'm reading it. A poem can appear finished just because of the cleanness of the typescript.”

Mark Strand (1934–2014) Canadian-American poet, essayist, translator

Paris Review Interview (1998)

“It is even in
prose, I am a real poet. My poem
is finished and I haven't mentioned
orange yet It's twelve poems, I call
it oranges.”

Frank O'Hara (1926–1966) American poet, art critic and writer

Why I Am Not a Painter (l. 24-28) (1976).

“My first contact with game theory was a popular article in Fortune Magazine which I read in my last high school year. I was immediately attracted to the subject matter and when I studied mathematics I found the fundamental book by von Neumann and Morgenstern in the library and studied it.”

Reinhard Selten (1930–2016) German economist

"Reinhard Selten - Biographical," 1994

“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)

“Rose once told me about this poem she’d read. There was this line, ‘If your eyes weren’t open, you wouldn’t know the difference between dreaming and waking.’ You know what I’m afraid of? That someday, even with my eyes open, I still won’t know.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

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