William Jay Smith Quotes
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I have felt at times with groups of children that I was really being what every poet would like to be - a bard in the old sense.
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I have always used a great variety of verse forms, especially in my poetry for children. I believe that poetry begins in childhood and that a poet who can remember his own childhood exactly can, and should, communicate to children.
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It was the enchantment of spoken verse that led me to write for children.
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A fresh and vigorous weed, always renewed and renewing, it will cut its wondrous way through rubbish and rubble.
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As any parent, teacher, or librarian knows, there is no richer experience than to see children's faces light up at the suspense of a new tale or the surprise of a new poem. The uninhibited joy with which they listen is surely akin to that of adult audiences of old around campfire and hearth.
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I believe that poetry should communicate.
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For every artist, experience is never complete until it has been reproduced in creative work.
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I still use a typewriter from time to time, but because I can't type as well as I used to, I really don't use one very much.
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I have published so many books in so many years. I can't complain about any lack of attention. But I've never been placed as a Southern writer, which I really am. So I was happy finally to be published by someone in the South.
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To the poet, his travels, his adventures, his loves, his indignations are finally resolved in verse, and this, in the end becomes his permanent, indestructible life.