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" I don't think anybody in my family meant there to be any pressure for me to write. But our parents were incredibly verbal and wrote for a living. The house was full of books, and we all grew up steeped in language. I mean, our mother recited poetry at the dinner table. "

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" I see people who talk about America, and then undermine it by not paying attention to its soul, to its poetry. I see polarization, reductionism and superficiality. "

Azar Nafisi

Soul

People

Poetry

" In fact a lot of them I think are absolute baloney. Those Charles Olsens and people like that. At first I was interested in seeing what they were up to, what they were doing, why they were doing it. They never moved me in the way that one is moved by true poetry. "

Norman MacCaig

Think

Doing

" I see a resurgence of interest in poetry. I am less optimistic about the prospects for the arts when it comes to federal funding. "

" Poetry is adolescence fermented, and thus preserved. "

" Poetry operates by hints and dark suggestions. It is full of secrets and hidden formulae, like a witch's brew. "

Anthony Hecht

Dark

Hidden

" I think that one possible definition of our modern culture is that it is one in which nine-tenths of our intellectuals can't read any poetry. "

" There is no Frigate like a book to take us lands away nor any coursers like a page of prancing Poetry. "

Emily Dickinson

Away

Book

" You know, people speak in poetry all the time. They just don't realize it. "

" 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. "

" From my teenage years on, I sought out Native elders from many tribal nations and listened to their words. I also started a small press, The Greenfield Review Press, and became very involved with publishing the work of other American Indian authors, especially books of poetry. "

" I began the way nearly everybody I ever heard of - I began writing poetry. And I find that to be quite usual with writers, their trying their hand at poetry. "

" One night, I lay awake for hours, just terrified. When the dawn finally came up - the comfortable blue sky, the familiar world returning - I could think of no other way to express my relief than through poetry. I made a decision there and then that it was what I wanted to do. Every time I pulled a wishbone, it was what I asked for. "

" Anticipating that most poetry will be worse than carrying heavy luggage through O'Hare Airport, the public, to its loss, reads very little of it. "

" I think poetry is a fabulous medium to encapsulate thoughts far more precisely than prose. "

" Journalism wishes to tell what it is that has happened everywhere as though the same things had happened for every man. Poetry wishes to say what it is like for any man to be himself in the presence of a particular occurrence as though only he were alone there. "

" Poetry, fiction as novels or short stories - these are autonomous as created by their authors. They should stand on their own, like pieces of furniture that should be judged as to their usefulness, elegance. "

" The single thing I've found it valuable to memorize is poetry. "

" I have felt great advances in my poetry, the main one being a growing victory over word nuances and a superfluity of adjectives. "

" Poetry is a mixture of common sense, which not all have, with an uncommon sense, which very few have. "

" Poetry may make us from time to time a little more aware of the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being, to which we rarely penetrate; for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves. "

T. S. Eliot

Poetry

Little

" I don't think poetry will die, but I think that poetry does demand a certain kind of attention to language. It does demand a certain space in order to read it, and I think that space is somewhat threatened by the lack of attention that people have and the amount of time that they give to things. "

" The actual world, not some fantastic structure that has nothing to do with reality, must provide the material for modern poetry. "

" Writing poetry makes you intensely conscious of how words sound, both aloud and inside the head of the reader. You learn the weight of words and how they sound to the ear. "

" You will find poetry nowhere unless you bring some of it with you. "

" Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash. "

" A novel is a work of poetry. In order to write it, one must have tranquility of spirit and of impression. "

" Poetry is what we turn to in the most emotional moments of our life - when a beloved friend dies, when a baby is born or when we fall in love. "

" The drama is complete poetry. The ode and the epic contain it only in germ; it contains both of them in a state of high development, and epitomizes both. "

" Each memorable verse of a true poet has two or three times the written content. "

" To be under occupation, to be under siege, is not a good inspiration for poetry. "