#poem

A poem records emotions and moods that lie beyond normal language, that can only be patched together and hinted at metaphorically. ↗

— Diane Ackerman

#emotions #language #lie #metaphorically #moods

A poem generated by its own laws may be unrealized and bad in terms of so-called objective principles of taste, judgement, deduction. ↗

— A. R. Ammons

#deduction #generated #judgement #laws #may

I didn't think about whether I was writing poems. I was thinking. And the more I was thinking, the more there was I didn't understand. ↗

— David Antin

#i #more #poems #think #thinking

I was very committed to the process of composing, working at poems, putting things together and taking them apart like some kind of experimental filmmaker. ↗

— David Antin

#committed #composing #experimental #filmmaker #i

The ancient Greek oral poets all had this anxiety about the deficiencies of their memories and always began poems by praying to the Muse to help them remember. ↗

— David Antin

#always #ancient #anxiety #began #deficiencies

It may be said that poems are in one way like icebergs: only about a third of their bulk appears above the surface of the page. ↗

— Howard Nemerov

#above #appears #bulk #icebergs #like

I have to make myself write, sometimes. In the space between poems, you somehow forget how to do it, where to begin. It was good to be task - based for a while. I just came downstairs each day, picked the one I was going to do that day, and wrote. ↗

— Simon Armitage

#begin #between #came #day #downstairs

It took some time to gather the research and develop it into the storyline, and to finally finish an origin myth poem that I had been working on for twenty years. ↗

— Jean M. Auel

#develop #finally #finish #gather #had

If you read quickly to get through a poem to what it means, you have missed the body of the poem. ↗

— M. H. Abrams

#body #get #means #missed #poem

I can't tell you where a poem comes from, what it is, or what it is for: nor can any other man. The reason I can't tell you is that the purpose of a poem is to go past telling, to be recognised by burning. ↗

— A. R. Ammons

#burning #comes #go #i #man