“Poems get to the point where they are stronger than you are. They come up from some other depth and they find a place on the page.”
The Paris Review interview
Context: Poems get to the point where they are stronger than you are. They come up from some other depth and they find a place on the page. You can never find that depth again, that same kind of authority and voice. I might feel I would like to change something about them, but they’re still stronger than I am and I cannot.
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Ted Hughes55
English poet and children's writer 1930–1998Related quotes
“Where words come out from the depth of truth”
Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath
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“If I knew where poems come from. I'd go there.”
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'The Observer ' article March 24 1991
Donald Justice (1925–2004) Poet, teacher
Poem
Departures (1973)
“You write poems
because you need
a place
where what isn’t may be”
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