I have had much to learn from Sweden's poetry and, more especially, from her lyrics of the last generation.
No, what I should really like to do right now, in the full blaze of lights, before this illustrious assembly, is to shower every one of you with gifts, with flowers, with offerings of poetry - to be young once more, to ride on the crest of the wave.
I was excited by what my painter friends were doing, and they seemed to be interested in our poetry too, and that was a wonderful little, fizzy sort of world.
I wonder if I ever thought of an ideal reader... I guess when I was in my 20s and in New York and maybe even in my early 30s, I would write for my wife Janice... mainly for my poet friends and my wife, who was very smart about poetry.
I was influenced by surrealist poetry and painting as were thousands of other people, and it seems to me to have become a part of the way I write, but it's not.
I knew what book we had to write, it was clear in my head; it was journals and poetry. So I passed on their offer. I told my agent this is our vision, and no one's done it this way.
The poetry I grew up on is really an intense form of poetry; it's so pure and powerful.
I guess I find the boundaries between poetry and prose to be somewhat permeable.
Poetry and prose are of equal importance to me as a reader, and there doesn't seem to be much difference in my own writing.
From what the moderns want, we must learn what poetry should become; from what the ancients did, what poetry must be.
The poetry of this one is called philosophical, of that one philological, of a third rhetorical, and so on. Which is then the poetic poetry?
Nothing truly convincing - which would possess thoroughness, vigor, and skill - has been written against the ancients as yet; especially not against their poetry.
One has only as much morality as one has philosophy and poetry.
If epic poetry is a definite species, the sagas do not fall within it.
That is to say, epic poetry has been invented many times and independently; but, as the needs which prompted the invention have been broadly similar, so the invention itself has been.
Traditional matter must be glorified, since it would be easier to listen to the re-creation of familiar stories than to quite new and unexpected things; the listeners, we must remember, needed poetry chiefly as the re-creation of tired hours.
For the last 15 years that I have been performing, all I ever wanted to do was transcend poetry to the world. See, it wasn't enough for me to write a book. It wasn't enough for me to join a slam competition, and while those things hold weight, it was...
A group of us started a community center in Santa Monica. We've tried different programs, and three have worked really well. A poetry group. Once a week we visit Venice High and talk to girls at risk.
Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven!
I never really liked poetry readings; I liked to read poetry by myself, but I liked singing, chanting my lyrics to this jazz group.
I always thought that poetry is the verdict that others give to a certain kind of writing. So to call yourself a poet is a kind of dangerous description. It's for others; it's for others to use.
