
“I learned to write by reading the kind of books I wished I'd written.”
The Ordering of Love: The New and Collected Poems of Madeleine L'Engle (2005)
Context: Poetry, at least the kind I write, is written out of immediate need; it is written out of pain, joy, and experience too great to be borne until it is ordered into words. And then it is written to be shared.
“I learned to write by reading the kind of books I wished I'd written.”
“If poets spoke their poetry, they would not need to write it.”
Poetry Quotes
“I may turn out an intellectual, but I'll never write anything but mediocre poetry.”
Source: This Side of Paradise
WPFW-FM inteview with Grace Cavalieri 1995/96 season
“I wanted to find out why Shelley could write better-sounding poetry than I.”
Los Angeles Times (1970); on why he chose to pursue phonetics.
greenbaypressgazette.com (October 5, 2005)
2007, 2008
“I never think of poetry or the poetry scene, only separate poems written by individuals.”
Interview in The Review, published by Ian Hamilton (1972)
Acceptance speech of the National Book Award for Nonfiction (1952); also in Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson (1999) edited by Linda Lear, p. 91
Context: The winds, the sea, and the moving tides are what they are. If there is wonder and beauty and majesty in them, science will discover these qualities. If they are not there, science cannot create them. If there is poetry in my book about the sea, it is not because I deliberately put it there, but because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out the poetry.