A Quote by Allison Joseph

I switch between fixed forms and free verse often, and enjoy being a poet who can "swing both ways," so to speak.

Allison Joseph

Quote Topics

Being Between Both Both Ways Enjoy Fixed Forms Free Free Verse Often Poet Speak Swing Switch Verse Ways

Quote Author

Allison Joseph
American - Poet
Born: 1967

Well, it's a badge of honour for any self-respecting poet to be criticized by Auberon Waugh. But in a lot of ways my poems are very conventional, and it's no big deal for me to write a poem in either free verse or strict form; modern poets can, and do, do both.

Andrew Motion

It is not just shameful for a contemporary American poet to use rhymes, it is unthinkable. It seems banal to him; he fears banality worse than anything, and therefore, he uses free verse - though free verse is no guarantee against banality.

Joseph Brodsky

If you swing both ways, you really swing. I just figure you double your pleasure.

Joan Baez

But in a lot of ways my poems are very conventional, and it's no big deal for me to write a poem in either free verse or strict form; modern poets can, and do, do both.

Andrew Motion

Among those today who believe that modern poetry must do without rhyme or metre, there is an assumption that the alternative to free verse is a crash course in villanelles, sestinas and other such fixed forms. But most... are rare in English poetry. Few poets have written a villanelle worth reading, or indeed regret not having done so.

James Fenton

Poets these days, like artists and composers, have won for themselves almost unlimited freedom. You can pass yourself off as a painter without being able to draw, as a composer without being conscious of key relationships, and as a poet without making yourself familiar with traditional verse forms.

Anne Stevenson

The poet is born with the capacity of arranging words in such a way that something of the quality of the graces and inspirations he has received can make itself felt to other human beings in the white spaces, so to speak, between the lines of his verse. This is a great and precious gift; but if the poet remains content with his gift, if he persists in worshipping the beauty in art and nature without going on to make himself capable, through selflessness, of apprehending Beauty as it is in the divine Ground, then he is only an idolater.

Aldous Huxley

You should know both the universal and the personal, the realm of forms and the freedom to not cling to them. The forms of the world have their place, but in another way, there is nothing there. To be free, we need to respect both of these truths.

Ajahn Chah

The Greeks, those originators of the intellectual life, fixed for us the idea of the poet. He was a divine man; more sacred than the priest, who was at best an intermediary between men and the gods, but in the poet the god was present and spoke.

George Edward Woodberry

Swing your swing. Not some idea of a swing. Not a swing you saw on TV. Not that swing you wish you had. No, swing your swing. Capable of greatness. Prized only by you. Perfect in it's imperfection. Swing your swing. I know, I did.

Arnold Palmer

The poet who writes "free" verse is like Robinson Crusoe on his desert island: he must do all his cooking, laundry and darning for himself. In a few exceptional cases, this manly independence produces something original and impressive, but more often the result is squalor - dirty sheets on the unmade bed and empty bottles on the unswept floor.

W. H. Auden

Because there are hundreds of different ways to say one thing, I, being a writer, songwriter, and poet, speak childishly and incoherently. In speech there is so much to decide in so little time.

Criss Jami

Art is my 'solo career' if you like. Musically, as a bass player, I depend on other musicians to play, whereas, with painting, I'm on my own. I find it quite easy to switch heads and I enjoy both the mayhem of being on tour and the serenity of being alone in my art studio.

Horace Panter

Some really good things kind of swing both ways and I like to see people that can swing really, really, really sad and horrible and terrible and really, really, really beautiful and funny.