He didn't know that sometimes, the most awesome and complicated thing you can do is just stick around.
People are jostling at the gates of heaven or Department stores Words are bumping into each other ("Poem")
The relation between a poet and audience is really insignificant. What matters is the poet is hearing something that he is broadcasting. And whether there is anybody with a receiver isn't the reason he does it. He hopes there is somebody receiving it...
Being Poet Laureate made me realize I was capable of a larger voice. There is a more public utterance I can make as a poet.
There is poetry even in prose, in all the great prose which is not merely utilitarian or didactic: there exist poets who write in prose or at least in more or less apparent prose; millions of poets write verses which have no connection with poetry.
I worked privately, and sometimes I feel that might be better for poets than the kind of social workshop gathering. My school was the great poets: I read, and I read, and I read.
A poet dares be just so clear and no clearer... He unzips the veil from beauty, but does not remove it. A poet utterly clear is a trifle glaring.
(1)BEING A POET is like opening a car door & exposing yourself. (2)BEING A GOOD POET is like opening the door & exposing the passenger as well.
John Keating: There's a time for daring and there's a time for caution, and a wise man understands which is called for.
John Keating: [the class hesitates to rip out the introduction page] It's not the Bible, you're not gonna go to Hell for this.
John Keating: Phone call from God. If it had been collect, that would have been daring!
Dalton: Gentlemen, what are the Four Pillars? Dalton, Meeks, Neil, Knox, Todd Anderson: Travesty. Horror. Decadence. Excrement.
John Keating: I always thought the idea of education was to learn to think for yourself. Nolan: At these boys' age? Not on your life!
Knox: The point, Charlie... is... that she was thinking about me. I've only met her once, and already she's thinking about me.
John Keating: Mr. Anderson! Don't think that I don't know that this assignment scares the hell out of you, you mole!
Dr. Hagar: That wouldn't be a radio in your lap would it Mr. Pitts? Pitts: No sir, science experiment... radar!
Never use the word 'audience.' The very idea of a public, unless the poet is writing for money, seems wrong to me. Poets don't have an 'audience'. They're talking to a single person all the time.
What is true by lamplight is not always true by sunlight.
These can never be true friends: Hope, dice, a prostitute, a robber, a cheat, a goldsmith, a monkey, a doctor, a distiller.
When you are very angry, don't go to a lawyer; when you are very hungry, don't be a poet.
It is practically a matter of life or death for a True Cock Worshiper to taste pre-cum.
