#poem

I sometimes talk about the making of a poem within the poem. ↗

— Howard Nemerov

#about #i #making #poem #sometimes

I've never read a political poem that's accomplished anything. Poetry makes things happen, but rarely what the poet wants. ↗

— Howard Nemerov

#anything #happen #i #makes #never

I've thought of the last line of some poems for years and tried them out, It wouldn't work because the last line was much too beautiful for the poem. ↗

— Howard Nemerov

#because #i #last #line #much

Mostly the thought and the verse come inseparably. In my poem Poetics, it's as close as I come to telling how I do it. ↗

— Howard Nemerov

#come #how #i #i do #inseparably

Robert Frost had always said you mustn't think of the last line first, or it's only a fake poem, not a real one. I'm inclined to agree. ↗

— Howard Nemerov

#always #fake #first #frost #had

Lyrics are very different. There is a clear line between that and a poem. Something that has been a source of great excitement and delight for me is this idea that I get to rhyme. ↗

— Joanna Newsom

#between #clear #delight #different #excitement

Early on, if I was alone two three nights in a row, I'd start writing poems about suicide. ↗

— Jack Nicholson

#alone #early #i #nights #poems

I think that there are fiction writers for whom that works well. I could never do it. I feel as if, by the time I see that it's a poem, it's almost written in my head somewhere. ↗

— Sharon Olds

#by the time #could #feel #fiction #fiction writers

Many poets write books. They'll tell you: Well, I've got my next book, but there are two poems I need to write, one about x, one about y. This is a wonder to me. ↗

— Sharon Olds

#book #books #got #i #many

This creature of the poem may assemble itself into a being with its own centrifugal force. ↗

— Sharon Olds

#being #creature #force #into #itself