Top 12 Quotes & Sayings by William Jay Smith

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American poet William Jay Smith.

Last updated on November 4, 2024.

William Jay Smith was an American poet. He was appointed the nineteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1968 to 1970.

American - Poet | April 22, 1918 - August 18, 2015

Source: Wikipedia

I believe that poetry should communicate.

William Jay Smith

I have felt at times with groups of children that I was really being what every poet would like to be - a bard in the old sense.

William Jay Smith

It was the enchantment of spoken verse that led me to write for children.

William Jay Smith

I have always used a great variety of verse forms, especially in my poetry for children. I believe that poetry begins in childhood and that a poet who can remember his own childhood exactly can, and should, communicate to children.

William Jay Smith

For every artist, experience is never complete until it has been reproduced in creative work.

William Jay Smith

I always had good recognition from the Southern writers, but the publishers never took any notice of that.

William Jay Smith

To the poet, his travels, his adventures, his loves, his indignations are finally resolved in verse, and this, in the end becomes his permanent, indestructible life.

William Jay Smith

A fresh and vigorous weed, always renewed and renewing, it will cut its wondrous way through rubbish and rubble.

William Jay Smith

As any parent, teacher, or librarian knows, there is no richer experience than to see children's faces light up at the suspense of a new tale or the surprise of a new poem. The uninhibited joy with which they listen is surely akin to that of adult audiences of old around campfire and hearth.

William Jay Smith

To Tennessee Williams we owe a special debt. In a tragic age, he has transformed loneliness by naming it for us, suffered sordidness with beauty, graced poor hurt lives with love and pity.

William Jay Smith

I have published so many books in so many years. I can't complain about any lack of attention. But I've never been placed as a Southern writer, which I really am. So I was happy finally to be published by someone in the South.

William Jay Smith

I still use a typewriter from time to time, but because I can't type as well as I used to, I really don't use one very much.

William Jay Smith