#poe

Before people complain of the obscurity of modern poetry, they should first examine their consciences and ask themselves with how many people and on how many occasions they have genuinely and profoundly shared some experience with another. ↗

— W. H. Auden

#ask #before #complain #consciences #examine

Every American poet feels that the whole responsibility for contemporary poetry has fallen upon his shoulders, that he is a literary aristocracy of one. ↗

— W. H. Auden

#aristocracy #contemporary #every #fallen #feels

I guess I wanted to leave America for awhile. It wasn't that I wanted to become an expatriate, or just never come back, I needed some breathing room. I'd already been translating French poetry, I'd been to Paris once before and liked it very much, and so I just went. ↗

— Paul Auster

#america #awhile #back #become #been

The great function of poetry is to give back to us the situations of our dreams. ↗

— Gaston Bachelard

#dreams #function #give #great #our

Poetry is one of the destinies of speech... One would say that the poetic image, in its newness, opens a future to language. ↗

— Gaston Bachelard

#future #image #language #newness #opens

I gave up on new poetry myself 30 years ago when most of it began to read like coded messages passing between lonely aliens in a hostile world. ↗

— Russell Baker

#began #between #coded #gave #hostile

Poetry is so vital to us until school spoils it. ↗

— Russell Baker

#school #spoils #until #us #vital

An experienced reader uses the poem as an agent of inquiry. This makes poetry very exciting, unstable, and interactive. ↗

— John Barton

#exciting #experienced #inquiry #interactive #makes

In the past, poetry came in the form of spells and chants used to effect change. ↗

— John Barton

#change #effect #form #in the past #past

Most victims of my autobiographical verse are either far too polite, remarkably understanding unaware that I have written poems about them. ↗

— John Barton

#autobiographical #either #far #i #most