
“All poets write bad poetry. Bad poets publish them, good poets burn them.”
Quote of Ball, 21 July 1920, in Flucht aus der Zeit, p. 266; as quoted by Debbie Lewer in 'Papers of Surrealism Issue 6 Autumn 2007', p. 15, note 15
while reading a book of mystic writers, Ball noted this remark
after 1916
“All poets write bad poetry. Bad poets publish them, good poets burn them.”
English Prose Style (1928)
Literary Quotes
Form in Modern Poetry(1932)
Source: The Akhmatova Journals, Volume I: 1938-1941
“Hymns are the poetry of the people.”
Radio Talk: BBC Radio (4 July 1975)
Laura Riding and Robert Graves from "Poetry and Politics", reprinted in The Common Asphodel (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1949)
The Influence of Meter on Poetic Convention, Section V : The Heroic Couplet and its Recent Rivals
Primitivism and Decadence : A Study of American Experimental Poetry (1937)
What It Means to Be a Poet in America (1926)
Context: Most of the good poetry, as I have said, has appeared in pamphlet form before the poet was known to the public. It is utterly impossible to make an income from verse, and one must win his worldly standing, and earn his living some other way. One of the most distinguished of the Middle Western poets supports himself by writing a movie column once a day. I do not know a poet in the Anglo-Saxon world who makes his living by poetry. Every single one of them makes his living in some other way.