About John Ciardi: John Anthony Ciardi is perhaps best measured through the younger poets whom he influenced as a teacher and as editor of the Saturday Review.
You don't have to suffer to be a poet
What has any poet to trust more than the feel of the thing? Theory concerns him only until he picks up his pen, and it begins to concern him again as soon as he lays it down.
Gentility is what is left over from rich ancestors after the money is gone.
You don't have to suffer to be a poet; adolescence is enough suffering for anyone.
Poetry lies its way to the truth.
