#poetry

Oh you're in my blood like holy wine You taste so bitter and so sweet Oh I could drink a case of you darling And I would still be on my feet Oh I would still be on my feet ↗

— Joni Mitchell

#song-lyrics

For the past thirty years or so, much American poetry has been marked by an earnestness that rejects the comic. This has nothing to do with seriousness. The comic can be very serious. The trouble with the earnest is that it seeks to be commended. It seeks to be praised for its intention more than for what it is saying. ↗

— Stephen Dobyns

#writing-craft

Once every five hundred years or so, a summary statement about poetry comes along that we can't imagine ourselves living without. ↗

— A. R. Ammons

#along #comes #every #five #hundred

I hardly remember how I started to write poetry. It's hard to imagine what I thought poetry could do. ↗

— David Antin

#hard #hardly #how #i #imagine

I was always interested in French poetry sort of as a sideline to my own work, I was translating contemporary French poets. That kind of spilled out into translation as a way to earn money, pay for food and put bread on the table. ↗

— Paul Auster

#bread #contemporary #earn #food #french

During our first date, I wanted to hold your hand so bad I almost cut mine off and threw it at you to see if you would catch it ↗

— Colin Gilbert

#love #poetry #dating

A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language. ↗

— W. H. Auden

#anything #before #else #language #love

Summer night-- even the stars are whispering to each other. ↗

— Kobayashi Issa

#stars

I'll Die For Your Sins If You Live For mine. ↗

— Jim Carroll

#sins #dreams

Songs of myself These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they are not original with me, If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing, or next to nothing, If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they are nothing, If they are not just as close as they are distant they are nothing. This is the grass that grows wherever the land is and the water is, This the common air that bathes the globe. ↗

— Walt Whitman

#age