Quotes from Campbell McGrath

It's not surprising to me that books ended up playing a central role in my life, but it is somewhat mysterious that poetry did.

I tend to write poetry that is rich in data of various sorts. The lyric poem isn't perfectly suited to accommodating such data, so I've had to find new ways to say everything that I want to say.

How strange that they arrive at all, nights on planet earth.

Dawn 5am: the frogs ask what is it, what is it? It is what it is.

The past is a sadly inadequate word for what we've been through

There is nothing romantic in the poverty of artists except to those who ogle the starving

What lasts, what endures, as Shakespeare knew, is this: the story of a life. No more, no less.

With pencil, with chalk, with a brush I shall seek its form -- with my hands I shall model what tyranny deforms.

So much of medicine is translation disguised as insight. You tell the doctor what's wrong with you in English and she tells you back in Greek, as the joke goes. Which is not to say that words can't taste like medicine. Placebo, in Latin, means "I shall be pleasing.

Just that. It is hard in the radiance of this world to live but we live.

war, the human antithesis of art

Poems are language turned into art; sound and sense matter; they can be as long or longer than The Odyssey or as short or shorter than a haiku. Not very helpful.

Many other cultures value poetry more than we do. In Ireland, poetry is a top cultural pursuit, the art to end all arts.