quotations about poetry
The hard part for me is to find the poem--a poem that matters. To find what the poem knows that's special. I may think of writing about the same thing that everyone does, but I really like to write a poem that hasn't been written. And I don't mean its shape. I want to experience or discover ways of feeling that are fresh. I love it when I have perceived something fresh about being human and being happy.
JACK GILBERT
The Paris Review, fall/winter 2005
What does it mean to be a great poet? It means that you wrote one or two great poems. Or great parts of poems. That's all it means. Don't try to picture the waste or it will alarm you.
NICHOLSON BAKER
The Anthologist
How do poems grow? They grow out of your life.
ROBERT PENN WARREN
The New York Times, May 12, 1985