John Crowe Ransom Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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Every now and then I read a poem that does touch something in me, but I never turn to poetry for solace or pleasure in the way that I throw myself into prose.
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I grew up in this town, my poetry was born between the hill and the river, it took its voice from the rain, and like the timber, it steeped itself in the forests.
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A poet's autobiography is his poetry. Anything else is just a footnote.
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Speech is the twin of my vision, it is unequal to measure itself, it provokes me forever, it says sarcastically, Walt you contain enough, why don't you let it out then?
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Mathematics is, as it were, a sensuous logic, and relates to philosophy as do the arts, music, and plastic art to poetry.
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I like the beauty of Faulkner's poetry. But I don't like his themes, not at all.
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Poetry and beauty are always making peace. When you read something beautiful you find coexistence; it breaks walls down.
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My first book was an adult novel, 'Down Among the Gods,' published by Virago, and I've written poems as well, a slim volume of poetry.
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I've written some poetry I don't understand myself.
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Though my poems are about evenly split between traditionally formal work that uses rhyme and meter and classical structure, and work that is freer, I feel that the music of language remains at the core of it all. Sound, rhythm, repetition, compression - these elements of my poetry are also elements of my prose.
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Poetry may make us from time to time a little more aware of the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being, to which we rarely penetrate; for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves.
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It is true that short forms of poetry have been cultivated in the Far East more than in modern Europe; but in all European literature short forms of poetry are to be found - indeed quite as short as anything in Japanese.
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I was trying to pay the bills with poems, and it was easy to memorize my poems, because I'd be riding my bike in California trying to memorize them before going on stage at a poetry lounge.
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Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about what is seen during the moment.
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I love the simple poetry of theater, where you can stand in a spotlight on a stage and wrap a coat around you, and say, 'It was 1860 and it was winter...'
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Some actors are like flowers basking in the sun - they love the attention, and the fans get what they want. With me it's different. I know the fans aren't getting what they want. And I'm certainly not getting what I want.
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Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.
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The 'Great Walk to Beijing' was a fundraiser for my cancer center. It was a three-week trek with fellow cancer 'thrivers,' including celebrities ranging from Joan Rivers to Leeza Gibbons and Olympians.
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Every American poet feels that the whole responsibility for contemporary poetry has fallen upon his shoulders, that he is a literary aristocracy of one.
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At eight, I made a commitment to poetry. Until then, I thought I'd be a policeman. But I went a whole night without sleeping, and the next day the world had changed. It needed a different language.
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Most wretched men Are cradled into poetry by wrong; They learn in suffering what they teach in song.
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An auctioneer is such a uniquely American thing. I keep thinking in my head, perhaps it's not as American as I think, but it feels so Southern. It feels so American. Like, hundreds of years of American tradition is involved in it.
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What is Oracle? It's people. We rely on our HR department to build this organization, to help find those people, to help grow those people.
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The arts generally have had to recognize Modernism - how should poetry escape?
