Other References:
Definition of Poetry
Internet search for Poetry
Find Poetry on Amazon
 |
Home | Authors | Topics | Quote of the Day |
|
Quotations on Poetry 586 Quotes Found With several different kinds of poetry to choose from, a man would decide that he would like best to be an epic poet, and he would set out, in conscious determination, on an epic poem. The reason can only be this: heroic poetry depends on an heroic age, and an age is heroic because of what it is, not because of what it does. By the general process of epic poetry, I mean the way this form of art has constantly responded to the profound needs of the society in which it was made. But the gravest difficulty, and perhaps the most important, in poetry meant solely for recitation, is the difficulty of achieving verbal beauty, or rather of making verbal beauty tell. That is to say, epic poetry has been invented many times and independently; but, as the needs which prompted the invention have been broadly similar, so the invention itself has been. Epic poetry exhibits life in some great symbolic attitude. It cannot strictly be said to symbolize life itself, but always some manner of life. Poetry is the work of poets, not of peoples or communities; artistic creation can never be anything but the production of an individual mind. With Shakespeare and poetry, a new world was born. New dreams, new desires, a self consciousness was born. I desired to know to know myself in terms of the new standards set by these books. There's one of my new poems actually - is a good example of where my poetry has ended up. My earlier river poetry was more like a cross between Shelley and Dylan Thomas. Well - I started writing - probably in the early 60s and by say '65-'66 I had read most of the poetry that had been published - certainly in the 20 years prior to that. Well I guess the plan was to write poetry and publish books and make a living from writing poetry. That was a pretty ambitious plan I guess. Poetry is a succession of questions which the poet constantly poses. That's a wonderful change that's taken place, and so most poetry today is published, if not directly by the person, certainly by the enterprise of the poet himself, working with his friends. If we ask a vague question, such as, 'What is poetry?' we expect a vague answer, such as, 'Poetry is the music of words,' or 'Poetry is the linguistic correction of disorder.' Once every five hundred years or so, a summary statement about poetry comes along that we can't imagine ourselves living without. The poet exposes himself to the risk. All that has been said about poetry, all that he has learned about poetry, is only a partial assurance. Probably all the attention to poetry results in some value, though the attention is more often directed to lesser than to greater values. Besides the actual reading in class of many poems, I would suggest you do two things: first, while teaching everything you can and keeping free of it, teach that poetry is a mode of discourse that differs from logical exposition. That is what I did with Jack, and that's why he liked to do the readings with me because he knew I was there for him, and for our ability to blend the poetry and the music. While I've had a great distaste for what's usually called song in modern poetry or for what's usually called music, I really don't think of speech as so far from song. I hardly remember how I started to write poetry. It's hard to imagine what I thought poetry could do. Poetry is simply the most beautiful, impressive, and widely effective mode of saying things. Poetry; a criticism of life under the conditions fixed for such a criticism by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty. Written poetry is worth reading once, and then should be destroyed. Let the dead poets make way for others. I don't look on poetry as closed works. I feel they're going on all the time in my head and I occasionally snip off a length. There is the view that poetry should improve your life. I think people confuse it with the Salvation Army. It takes most men five years to recover from a college education, and to learn that poetry is as vital to thinking as knowledge. At this point we've answered about every question you could possibly imagine about Deep Space Nine, so we do this thing called Theatrical Jazz, where we do a show of bits and pieces of things from plays and literature, poetry... stuff that we like. It's fun. Every American poet feels that the whole responsibility for contemporary poetry has fallen upon his shoulders, that he is a literary aristocracy of one. Before people complain of the obscurity of modern poetry, they should first examine their consciences and ask themselves with how many people and on how many occasions they have genuinely and profoundly shared some experience with another. I guess I wanted to leave America for awhile. It wasn't that I wanted to become an expatriate, or just never come back, I needed some breathing room. I'd already been translating French poetry, I'd been to Paris once before and liked it very much, and so I just went. 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. Poetry is one of the destinies of speech... One would say that the poetic image, in its newness, opens a future to language. Poetry is so vital to us until school spoils it. I gave up on new poetry myself 30 years ago when most of it began to read like coded messages passing between lonely aliens in a hostile world. 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. Love is the poetry of the senses. Poetry is but another form of inquiry into the nature of phenomena, using with its own unique procedures and tools. Sometimes poetry is inspired by the conversation entered into by reading other poems. My obsession with time informs my poetry so completely it is hard for me to summarize it. We want time to pass, for new things to happen to us, we want to hold on to certain moments, we don't want our lives to end. If poetry alters the way in which the reader views the world, then it has had its desired effect. In the past, poetry came in the form of spells and chants used to effect change. When I was in college, I used to write little ditties and short stories and poetry for my friends. Writing a book is another thing. It is so much different from my traditional day of dirty fingernails and greasy hair and hot pans. France is not poetic; she even feels, in fact, a congenital horror of poetry. Among the writers who use verse, those whom she will always prefer are the most prosaic. The dance can reveal everything mysterious that is hidden in music, and it has the additional merit of being human and palpable. Dancing is poetry with arms and legs. Any healthy man can go without food for two days - but not without poetry. Poetry and progress are like two ambitious men who hate one another with an instinctive hatred, and when they meet upon the same road, one of them has to give place. It is the hour to be drunken! to escape being the martyred slaves of time, be ceaselessly drunk. On wine, on poetry, or on virtue, as you wish. It is time to get drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of Time, get drunk; get drunk without stopping! On wine, on poetry, or on virtue, as you wish. Too many people in the modern world view poetry as a luxury, not a necessity like petrol. But to me it's the oil of life.
|
|
|