Poet Quotes - Page 27

• This seems to me a philosophical question, and therefore irrelevant, question. A poet's destiny is to love.

  Robert Graves

  Philosophical, Destiny, Seems

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• But that so many scholars are barbarians does not much matter so long as a few of them are ready to help with their specialized knowledge the few independent thinkers, that is to say the poets, who try to to keep civilization alive.

  Robert Graves

  Independent, Civilization, Long

  Robert Graves (2011). “The White Goddess”, p.361, Faber & Faber

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• The stream of Time, which is continually washing the dissoluble fabrics of other poets, passes without injury by the adamant of Shakespeare.

  Samuel Johnson

  Fabric, Injury, Streams

  William Shakespeare, Isaac Reed, Samuel Johnson, George Steevens, Charlotte L. Fish (1817). “The Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare: In Ten Volumes ; with the Corrections and Illustrations of Dr. Johnson, G. Steevens, and Others”, p.31

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• Of little use, the man you may suppose,
  Who says in verse what others say in prose;
  Yet let me show a poet's of some weight,
  And (though no soldier) useful to the state,
  What will a child learn sooner than a song?
  What better teach a foreigner the tongue?
  What's long or short, each accent where to place
  And speak in public with some sort of grace?

  Alexander Pope

  Song, Children, Men

  Alexander Pope (1829). “An Essay on Man: And Other Poems”, p.156

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• The first movie that made me cry was Dead Poets Society. That one gets me. O Captain! My Captain! That moment kills me.

  David Walton

  Dead Poets Society, Captains, Firsts

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• The revelatory or visionary is the province of the 'private' artist, who in order to render his personal world comprehensible or even tolerable, must force others to believe in it and therefore share it. It is said that 'the poet does not wish to be understood, but to be believed.

  Kenneth Coutts-Smith

  Believe, Artist, Order

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• James McMurtry is a true Americana poet - actually he is a poet regardless of genre

  Michael Nesmith

  Genre, Americana

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• If I were poet now, I would not resist the temptation to trace my life back through the delicate shadows of my childhood to the precious and sheltered sources of my earliest memories. But these possessions are far too dear and sacred for the person I now am to spoil for myself. All there is to say of my childhood is that it was good and happy. I was given the freedom to discover my own inclinations and talents, to fashion my inmost pleasures and sorrows myself and to regard the future not as an alien higher power but as the hope and product of my own strength.

  Hermann Hesse

  Fashion, Memories, Childhood

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• H.L.Mencken's war aims, according to the handful of observers who deigned to notice his conflict, were the overthrow of American Democracy, the Christian religion, and the YMCA. He was also credited with trying to wipe out poets and luncheon orators.

  Ben Hecht

  Christian, Art, War

  Ben Hecht (1964). “Letters from Bohemia”

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• On sighting mathematicians poetry should unhook the algebra from their minds and replace it with poetry; on sighting poets it should unhook poetry from their minds and replace it with algebra.

  Brian Patten

  Mind, Mathematics, Should

  Brian Patten (2007). “Selected Poems”, ePenguin

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• Words too familiar, or too remote, defeat the purpose of a poet.

  Samuel Johnson

  Purpose, Defeat, Familiar

  Samuel Johnson (1825). “The Lives of the English Poets”, p.115

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• Inspiration is not the exclusive privilege of poets or artists. There is, there has been, there will always be a certain group of people whom inspiration visits. It's made up of all those who've consciously chosen their calling and do their job with love and imagination. Difficulties and setbacks never quell their curiosity. A swarm of new questions emerges from every problem that they solve. Whatever inspiration is, it's born from a continuous 'I don't know.'

  Wislawa Szymborska

  Jobs, Inspiration, Artist

  "The Poet and the World". Nobel Lecture, www.nobelprize.org. December 07, 1996.

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• The great artist, whether he be musician, painter, or poet, is known for this absolute unexpectedness.

  Loren Eiseley

  Artist, Musician, Great Art

  Loren Eiseley (2016). “The Night Country: A Library of America eBook Classic”, p.113, Library of America

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• Plato found fault that the poets of his time filled the world with wrong opinions of the gods, making light tales of that unspotted essence, and therefore would not have the youth depraved with such opinions.

  Philip Sidney

  Plato, Light, Essence

  Sir Philip Sidney, Richard Bellings (1724). “The works of the Honourable Sr. Philip Sidney, kt. in prose and verse: In three volumes. ...”

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• My own journey in becoming a poet began with memory - with the need to record and hold on to what was being lost. One of my earliest poems, Give and Take, was about my Aunt Sugar, how I was losing her to her memory loss.

  Natasha Trethewey

  Memories, Loss, Aunt

  "PBS Newshour’s Poetry Series: Where Poetry Lives" by Jonterri Gadson, therumpus.net. September 13, 2013.

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• I teach a lecture course on American poetry to as many as 150 students. For a lot of them, its their only elective, so this is their one shot. Theyll take the Russian Novel or American Poetry, so I want to give them the high points, the inescapable poets.

  Robert Hass

  Giving, Want, Lectures

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• Prophets, mystics, poets, scientific discoverers are men whose lives are dominated by a vision; they are essentially solitary men . . . whose thoughts and emotions are not subject to the dominion of the herd.

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Vision, Dominion

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.337, Routledge

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• In America they have to know just what you are-- novelist, poet, playwright... Well, I've been all of them... I think poems and novels and stories spring from the same seed. It's not like, say, playing polo and knitting.

  Robert Penn Warren

  Spring, Thinking, Knitting

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• I would say, from an all-around point of view, Bruce Springsteen is one of the two great poet lords of America, Bob Dylan, coming out of the music world, the two of them.

  Clive Davis

  Views, Two, America

  "Clive Davis in No Spin Zone". "The O'Reilly Factor" with Bill O'Reilly, www.foxnews.com. March 07, 2013.

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• I do not want to be bored listening to music that is muffled and known only to the poet himself.

  F. Sionil José

  Bored, Listening, Want

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• Patricia Smith is one of the best poets around and has been for a long time. Her Blood Dazzler is full of capacious soul and formal inventiveness: the compassion and artfulness necessary to capture the tragedies and Tragedy of Katrina. Smith is herself a storm of beautiful, frightening talent. Her words will wash you or wash you away. I consider this new book a major literary event.

  Terrance Hayes

  Beautiful, Book, Compassion

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• Bob Moses, composer, drummer, poet, artist, conceptualizer, inspirer of people, has created a musical environment that is balanced between discipline and freedom, compositional design and spontaneous inspiration. A party with a purpose. This album is original, soulful, funny and very special. I hope a lot of people get as much enjoyment from it as I have.

  Gil Evans

  Inspiration, Party, Artist

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• Defeat furnishes good material to the poets and the artists, but none of us care to have the glory of the conquered apply to us.

  Susan Glaspell

  Artist, Care, Defeat

  Susan Glaspell (2008). “The Glory of the Conquered”, p.48, Wildside Press LLC

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• Katherine Sedley was the only daughter and heiress to the libertine poet Sir Charles Sedley, and grew into a thoroughly scandalous lady in her own right.

  Susan Holloway Scott

  Daughter, Heiress, Grew

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• But Thee, but Thee, O sovereign Seer of time,
  But Thee, O poets' Poet, Wisdom's Tongue,
  But Thee, O man's best Man, O love's best Love,
  O perfect life in perfect labor writ,
  O all men's Comrade, Servant, King, or Priest, --
  What IF or YET, what mole, what flaw, what lapse,
  What least defect or shadow of defect,
  What rumor, tattled by an enemy,
  Of inference loose, what lack of grace
  Even in torture's grasp, or sleep's, or death's --
  Oh, what amiss may I forgive in Thee,
  Jesus, good Paragon, Thou Crystal Christ?

  Sidney Lanier

  Best Love, Jesus, Kings

  Sidney Lanier (1999). “Poems of Sidney Lanier”, p.32, University of Georgia Press

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