“The one…thing which mattered about any poem (so ran my second poetic period's credo) was what the poem said; it's socalled meaning … Thus it will be seen that, by the year 1900, one growing American boy had reached exactly that stage of "intellectual development" beyond which every ungrowing Marxist adult of today is strictly forbidden … ever to pass.”

"i & you & is: Nonlecture Four"
i : six nonlectures (1953)

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Do you have more details about the quote "The one…thing which mattered about any poem (so ran my second poetic period's credo) was what the poem said; it's socal…" by E.E. Cummings?

E.E. Cummings208

American poet 1894–1962

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

"Answers to Questions," from Mid-Century American Poets, edited by John Ciardi, 1950 [p. 170]
Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964 (1980)

“The poetic image is not a static thing. It lives in time, as does the poem.”

Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980) poet and political activist

Source: The Life of Poetry (1949), p. 32
Context: The poetic image is not a static thing. It lives in time, as does the poem. Unless it is the first image of the poem, it has already been prepared for by other images; and it prepares us for further images and rhythms to come. Even if it is the first image of the poem, the establishment of the rhythm prepares us — musically — for the music of the image. And if its first word begins the poem, it has the role of putting into motion all the course of images and music of the entire work, with nothing to refer to, except perhaps a title.

“Its was one of those events which at a crucial stage in one's development arrive to challenge and stretch one to the limit of one's ability and beyond, so that thereafter one has a new standard by which to judge oneself.”

Kazuo Ishiguro The Remains of the Day

Source: The Remains of the Day

“What is frequently appreciated in many so-called symbols is exactly their vagueness, their openness, their fruitful ineffectiveness to express a 'final' meaning, so that with symbols and by symbols one indicates what is always beyond one's reach.”

Umberto Eco book Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language

[4] Symbol
Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language (1984)
Context: What is a symbol? Etymologically speaking, the word σύμβολον comes from σνμβάλλω, to throw-with, to make something coincide with something else: a symbol was originally an identification mark made up of two halves of a coin or of a medal. Two halves of the same thing, either one standing for the other, both becoming, however, fully effective only when they matched to make up, again, the original whole. … in the original concept of symbol, there is the suggestion of a final recomposition. Etymologies, however, do not necessarily tell the truth — or, at least, they tell the truth, in terms of historical, not of structural, semantics. What is frequently appreciated in many so-called symbols is exactly their vagueness, their openness, their fruitful ineffectiveness to express a 'final' meaning, so that with symbols and by symbols one indicates what is always beyond one's reach.

“In my productive activity, every time a type grows beyond the stage of its genesis, and I have about reached the goal, the intensity gets lost very quickly, and I have to look for new ways. It is precisely the way which is productive - this is the essential thing: becoming is more important than being.”

Paul Klee (1879–1940) German Swiss painter

Quote (1912), # 928, in The Diaries of Paul Klee, translation: Pierre B. Schneider, R. Y. Zachary and Max Knight; publisher, University of California Press, 1964
1911 - 1914

“A good poem is a tautology. It expands one word by adding a number which clarify it, thus making a new word which has never before been spoken. The seed-word is always so ordinary that hardly anyone perceives it. Classical odes grow from and or because, romantic lyrics from but or if.”

Alasdair Gray (1934–2019) Scottish writer and artist

Immature verses expand a personal pronoun ad nauseam, the greatest works bring glory to a common verb.
"Prometheus", pp. 208-9.
Unlikely Stories, Mostly (1983)

“The small things of life were often so much bigger than the great things, she decided, wondering how many writers and philosophers had said this before her, the trivial pleasures like cooking, one's home, little poems especially sad ones, solitary walks, funny things seen and overheard.”

Barbara Pym book Less than Angels

Less than Angels (1955), chapter 9