#poem

Keats writes better about poems than anybody I've ever read. The things that he says about what he wants his own poems to be are the ideals that I share. ↗

— Andrew Motion

#anybody #better #ever #i #keats

I don't want my poems to be sentimental, though I do acknowledge that sentiment is probably rather under-reported in a lot of people's feelings a lot of the time. ↗

— Andrew Motion

#feelings #i #i do #lot #people

But in a lot of ways my poems are very conventional, and it's no big deal for me to write a poem in either free verse or strict form; modern poets can, and do, do both. ↗

— Andrew Motion

#big deal #both #conventional #deal #either

If I were to die thinking that I'd written three poems that people might read after me, I would feel that I hadn't lived in vain. Great poets might expect the whole body of their work, but most of us - well, I would settle for a handful. ↗

— Andrew Motion

#die #feel #hadn #i #lived

I shall try to write a poem that is about the moment but doesn't betray things that are true to me as a poet. ↗

— Andrew Motion

#betray #i #me #moment #poem

I want to write poems which are very emotional, but I would have some hesitation in saying I want to write poems which are sentimental. ↗

— Andrew Motion

#hesitation #i #poems #saying #sentimental

Pretty much the day I stopped being laureate, the poems that had been few and far between came back to me, like birds in the evening nesting in a tree. ↗

— Andrew Motion

#been #being #between #birds #came

The best public poems aren't necessarily those that go at the subject like a bull at a gate. ↗

— Andrew Motion

#bull #gate #go #like #necessarily

Well, it's a badge of honour for any self-respecting poet to be criticized by Auberon Waugh. But in a lot of ways my poems are very conventional, and it's no big deal for me to write a poem in either free verse or strict form; modern poets can, and do, do both. ↗

— Andrew Motion

#badge #big #big deal #both #conventional

The notes I have made are not a diary in the ordinary sense, but partly lengthy records of my spiritual experiences, and partly poems in prose. ↗

— Edvard Munch

#experiences #i #lengthy #made #notes