“Who says my poems are poems?
My poems are not poems.
When you know that my poems are not poems,
Then we can speak of poetry.”

— Ryōkan

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)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update May 10, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Who says my poems are poems? My poems are not poems. When you know that my poems are not poems, Then we can speak of…" by Ryōkan?

Ryōkan 18

Japanese Buddhist monk 1758–1831

Related quotes

“A successful poem says what a poet wants to say, and more, with particular finality. The remarks he makes about his poems are incidental when the poem is good, or embarrassing or absurd when it is bad — and he is not permitted to say how the good poem is good, and may never know how the bad poem is bad. It is better to write about other people's poetry.”

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

"Answers to Questions," from Mid-Century American Poets, edited by John Ciardi, 1950 [p. 171]
Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964 (1980)

“Emerson writes in his Journal that all men try their hands at poetry, but few know which their poems are. The poets are not those who write poems, but those who know which of the things they write are poems.”

Carl Andre (1935) American artist

Quote from a 1962 essay by Andre; as quoted in ' Objects Are What We Aren't' https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/02/26/objects-are-what-we-arent/, by Andy Battaglia; The Parish Review, February 26, 2015

“You can woo a girl with a poem, but you can't hold onto her with a poem. Not even with a poetry movement.”

Roberto Bolaño book The Savage Detectives

Source: The Savage Detectives

“My poems please the brave:
My poems, short and sincere,
Have the force of steel
Which forges swords.”

José Martí (1853–1895) Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader

Source: Simple Verses (1891), V

“There neither exists nor can exist any work more thoroughly dignified — more supremely noble than this very poem — this poem per se — this poem which is a poem and nothing more — this poem written solely for the poem's sake.”

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) American author, poet, editor and literary critic

The Poetic Principle (1850)

“Poem me no poems.”

Rose Macaulay (1881–1958) English novelist and writer

Quoted in Poetry Review, Autumn 1963

“The person who wrote the poem can tell you more about the poem than anyone else.”

David Yezzi (1966) American poet

Interview with Ernest Hibert (2006)

“Poetry is the subject of the poem,
From this the poem issues and
To this returns. Between the two,
Between issue and return, there is
An absence in reality,
Things as they are. Or so we say.
But are these separate?”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

The Man With the Blue Guitar (1937)

“It’s not easy to write a poem about a poem.”

Dejan Stojanovic (1959) poet, writer, and businessman

“Is It Possible to Write a Poem?,” p. 111
The Sun Watches the Sun (1999), Sequence: “Is It Possible to Write a Poem”

“My poems are naughty, but my life is pure.”
Lasciva est nobis pagina, vita proba.

Martial book Epigrammata

I, 4.
Epigrams (c. 80 – 104 AD)

Related topics