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)
“Poem me no poems.”
Quoted in Poetry Review, Autumn 1963
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Rose Macaulay 6
English novelist and writer 1881–1958Related quotes
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
The Poetic Principle (1850)
“It’s not easy to write a poem about a poem.”
“Is It Possible to Write a Poem?,” p. 111
The Sun Watches the Sun (1999), Sequence: “Is It Possible to Write a Poem”
Lecture, "The Themes of Robert Frost" (1947)
“The newspaper is a corporate symbolist poem, environmental and invisible, as poem.”
1970s, Culture Is Our Business (1970)
“I prefer the absurdity of writing poems
to the absurdity of not writing poems.”
Source: Nothing Twice: Selected Poems
“You must believe: a poem is a holy thing — a good poem, that is.”
Poetry and Craft (1965)
“…whether they write poems or don’t write poems, poets are best.”
“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.”