#poetry

I was apprehensive. I feared every time I talked about poetry, it would be filtered through the lens of race, sex, and age. ↗

— Rita Dove

#age #apprehensive #every #every time #feared

There are distinct duties of a poet laureate. I plan a reading series at the Library of Congress and advise the librarian. The rest is how I want to promote poetry. ↗

— Rita Dove

#congress #distinct #duties #how #i

I loved a woman whose beauty Like the moon moved all the humming heavens to music till the stars with their tiny teeth burst into song and I fell on the ground before her while the sky hardened and she laughed and turned me down softly, I was so young. ↗

— Peter Meinke

#poetry #rejection #beauty

But at the beginning it was clear to me that concrete poetry was peculiarly suited for using in public settings. This was my idea, but of course I never really much got the chance to do it. ↗

— Ian Hamilton Finlay

#chance #clear #concrete #course #got

But I can only write what the muse allows me to write. I cannot choose, I can only do what I am given, and I feel pleased when I feel close to concrete poetry - still. ↗

— Ian Hamilton Finlay

#am #cannot #choose #close #concrete

Well, probably I was fed up with concrete poetry. There was a lot of bad concrete poetry and besides, it was confused with visual poetry which was completely different. ↗

— Ian Hamilton Finlay

#besides #completely #concrete #confused #different

And the second question, can poetry be taught? I didn't think so. ↗

— Norman MacCaig

#poetry #question #second #taught #think

At the round earth's imagined corners blow Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise From death, you numberless infinities Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go ; All whom the flood did, and fire shall o'erthrow, All whom war, dea[r]th, age, agues, tyrannies, Despair, law, chance hath slain, and you, whose eyes Shall behold God, and never taste death's woe. But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space ; For, if above all these my sins abound, 'Tis late to ask abundance of Thy grace, When we are there. Here on this lowly ground, Teach me how to repent, for that's as good As if Thou hadst seal'd my pardon with Thy blood. ↗

— John Donne

#poetry #religion #age

Life defined only as the opposite of death is not life. ↗

— Mahmoud Darwish

#poetry #death

Poetry has the virtue of being able to say twice as much as prose in half the time, and the drawback, if you do not give it your full attention, of seeming to say half as much in twice the time. ↗

— Christopher Fry

#attention #being #drawback #full #give