Poems Quotes
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There are different gradations of personhood in different poems. Some of them seem far away from me and some up close, and the up-close ones generally don't say what I want them to say. And that's true of the persona in the poem who's lamenting this as a fact of a certain stage of life. But it's also true of me as me.
Anne Carson
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I never deny poems when they come; whatever I am doing, whatever I am writing, I lay it aside and attend to the arriving poem.
Amy Lowell
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I treat myself as one of the sources. And, again, I think that’s accurate. One of the poets I read most frequently is myself. I really do. I read my own poems obsessively.
Dan Chiasson
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I wish all difficult poems were profound. Honk if you wish all difficult poems were profound.
Ben Lerner
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Keats, it must be remembered, was a sensualist. His poems ... reveal him as a man not altogether free from the vulgarities of sensualism, as well as one who was able to transmute it into perfect literature.
Robert Wilson Lynd
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I soon realized that poets do not compose their poems with knowledge, but by some inborn talent and by inspiration, like seers and prophets who also say many fine things without any understanding of what they say.
Socrates
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It is very difficult to pass from pleasure to work. Accordingly more poems have been swallowed up by sorrow than ever happiness caused to blaze forth in unparalleled radiance.
Honore de Balzac
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In his writings, Patton was shameless about his ambition to woo Lena to be his bride. He detailed the gradual progress he made, playing music for her on his violin, writing her poems, beguiling her with stories, engaging her in conversation. It was clear that he obsessed over her. He knew what he wanted and never relented until she was his.
Brandon Mull
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Peter Conners stunning prose poems are packed with keen sensitivity, dreaminess, and wit. I love his time travels, the vibrant layering of image and detail. Try taking walks as you are reading this book- the dazzle of landscapes, inner and outer, feel replenished and rich. This is language and vision I want to come home to again and again.
Naomi Shihab Nye
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I like ornament at the right time, but I don't want a poem to be made out of decoration ... When I read the poems that matter to me, it stuns me how much the presence of the heart-in all its forms-is endlessly available there. To experience ourselves in an important way just knocks me out. It puzzles me why people have given that up for cleverness. Some of them are ingenious, more ingenious than I am, but so many of them aren't any good at being alive.
Jack Gilbert
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I write poems for myself and I write poetry that gets torn apart and becomes songs. I have a lot of respect for words, the power of words.
Kurt Cobain
Nirvana
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You ever hear guys with small cocks talk about sex? Can't talk about it enough. They even got poems. They'll say, 'It's not the motion of the ocean, it's the boat of the lotion.' I've even heard variants..., it's not the tree or the size, it's the axe that you wax.' It's a whole sub-genre of poetry now that's taught in many of our finer institutions.
Norm MacDonald
