Quotes About Poetry

Gregory Corso used to get really pissed when people called Bob Dylan a 'poet.' After writing poetry for a few years, I can understand that.

I was writing poems when I was young, you know, because my father was a poet, so it was absolutely normal to follow my father.

If you want to be a poet, you can just write it on a napkin, and it's the length of the napkin, I guess. But usually you decide you'll rhyme it, or you'll have a formula. In radio, that's something called, 'Close your eyes and listen.'

You don't become a poet if you want to make any money.

'The Narrow Road to the Deep North' is one of the most famous books of all Japanese literature, written by the great poet Basho in 1689.

When you put a poem on a Kindle, the lines are broken in order to fit on the screen. And so instead of being the poet's decision, it becomes the device's decision.

I began to imitate what I was reading, and I started to become a poet, even though what I was writing were not good poems.

It's very important to me to be an American poet, a Jewish poet, a poet who came of age in the 1960s.

I didn't read poetry seriously until college, when I really began to devour it in a very intense way. I also discovered that a poet is a maker. Before that, I thought a poet was someone who wrote about his own experiences.

Oh, I'm a pretty bad poet. This has been corroborated by others.

I thought that if one wanted to be a writer, one had to write novels because I didn't know that one could be a poet.

Once I stop being a citizen of the U.S.S.R., I will not stop being a Russian poet.

I got out of Iowa all set to be a poet and a novelist, but you know what? It's really tough to make a living as a poet.

I love Roald Dahl, Sharon Olds, Nizar Qabbani, who is a poet, and Junot Diaz.

My dedication to trying to be a poet started very, very young, and I was very well encouraged by good teachers and by older friends and so on, so I think it is a benediction, and I also think it is a calling, a duty.

Fred Moten is a poet I really love because he changes who is telling the poem all the time.

You know, one of my favorite movies that inspired me and got me started was 'Dead Poet's Society.'

I don't feel like a celebrity. Poetry justifies celebrity. It's good to have respect for a poet.

You can't read to yourself. It's your inner ear that hears a poem. If you hear a poet read his own work, it becomes very exciting. The melody is a great part of it.

I'm a huge fan of Toni Morrison. I just think she's so incredible. And also Nayyirah Waheed, who's a poet.

I know when I go to a poetry reading, I feel purged, exulted. You let the poet guide you through some kind of journey.

In African-American culture, there's often a family historian, someone who does the genealogy or keeps the family Bible. I became aware that might be one role the poet has.

I wanted to be a poet. I wrote from ages 15 to 22, but I left it because I discovered, and fell in love with, cinema.

I wanted to learn Latin and Greek and become a poet and acquire power over language. I only understand this clearly in retrospect, that my ability to study came from a hunger to learn all the resources of articulation.