
“[Poetry] is the liquid voice that can wear through stone.”
Source: What is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics
“Selected Aphorisms from the Lyceum (1797)”, Dialogue on Poetry and Literary Aphorisms, Ernst Behler and Roman Struc, trans. (Pennsylvania University Press:1968) #117
Context: Poetry can be criticized only through poetry. A critique which itself is not a work of art, either in content as representation of the necessary impression in the process of creation, or through its beautiful form and in its liberal tone in the spirit of the old Roman satire, has no right of citizenship in the realm of art.
“[Poetry] is the liquid voice that can wear through stone.”
Source: What is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics
"Orphée Noir (Black Orpheus)"
“Poetry can be written only because it has been written.”
"The Responsibility of the Poet".
What Are People For? (1990)
“A poet's autobiography is his poetry. Anything else can be only a footnote.”
Andrew R. MacAndrew (trans.) A Precocious Autobiography (1963; repr. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965) p. 7.
Hugging the Shore, foreword (1983)
“I never think of poetry or the poetry scene, only separate poems written by individuals.”
Interview in The Review, published by Ian Hamilton (1972)
"The Anonymity of the Regional Poet: Ted Kooser," from Can Poetry Matter? Essays on Poetry and American Culture (1992)
Essays
“I'm only interested in poetry.”
Source: The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems, 1946-1966