A Quote by Luis Gonzalez
If you can explain a poem, it is not a poem. Poetry has to be inexplicable.
Quote Topics
Quote Author
Related Quotes
I think a good poem should have some inscrutable part. You can't quite explain it. The poem can only explain itself to a certain limit and at that point you enter into a little bit of mystery. That for me is the perfect poem: to begin in clarity and to end in mystery.
Often when I write poetry I don't quite know what I'm saying myself. I mean, I can't restate the poem. The meaning of the poem is the poem.
For poetry is, I believe, always an act of the spirit. The poem teaches us something while we make it. The poem makes you as you make the poem, and your making of the poem requires all your capacities of thought, feeling, analysis, and synthesis.
The subject of the poem usually dictates the rhythm or the rhyme and its form. Sometimes, when you finish the poem and you think the poem is finished, the poem says, "You're not finished with me yet," and you have to go back and revise, and you may have another poem altogether. It has its own life to live.
Poetry has no goal other than itself; it can have no other, and no poem will be so great, so noble, so truly worthy of the name of poem, than one written uniquely for the pleasure of writing a poem.
Truly fine poetry must be read aloud. A good poem does not allow itself to be read in a low voice or silently. If we can read it silently, it is not a valid poem: a poem demands pronunciation. Poetry always remembers that it was an oral art before it was a written art. It remembers that it was first song.
Do not wait for a poem; a poem is too fast for you. Do not wait for the poem; run with the poem and then write the poem.
I think that poetry is an act of celebration, that anytime you're writing a poem, it means that you're celebrating something, even if it's a sad poem, if it's an angry poem, a political poem or anything at all. The fact that you're taking the time and energy to pick up this thing and hold it to the light, and say, "Let's take some time to consider this," means that you've deemed it worthy enough to spend time on - which, in my opinion, is celebrating.
The statement of ideas in a poem may have to do with logic. More profoundly, it may be identified with the emotional progression of the poem, in terms of the music and images, so that the poem is alive throughout. Another, more fundamental statement in poetry, is made through the images themselves those declarations, evocative, exact, and musical, which move through time and are the actions of a poem.
To do a poem justice, explain what makes it unique; to get a poem noticed, explain what makes it typical.
What I try to do is to go into a poem - and one writes them, of course, poem by poem - to go into each poem, first of all without having any sense whatsoever of where it's going to end up
What I try to do is to go into a poem - and one writes them, of course, poem by poem - to go into each poem, first of all without having any sense whatsoever of where it's going to end up.
Poetry is poetry. My process is I try to write the best poem I can, in the best way to communicate whatever it is the poem is trying to communicate, and then I try to figure out the best way to present that poem to a live audience. It's all craft, just different stages of craft.
It seems just possible that a poem might happen to a very young man: but a poem is not poetry -That is a life.
A successful poem says what a poet wants to say, and more, with particular finality. The remarks he makes about his poems are incidental when the poem is good, or embarrassing or absurd when it is bad and he is not permitted to say how the good poem is good, and may never know how the bad poem is bad. It is better to write about other people's poetry.
That's one of those questions that would just love to have a pat answer. You know, poetry's job is to make us feel good. Poetry exists to allow us to express our innermost feelings. There isn't one role for poetry in society. There are many roles for poetry. I wrote a poem to seduce my wife. I wrote a poem when I asked her to marry me. Poetry got me laid. Poetry got me married.
Related Authors
Babe Ruth Quotes
American
Baseball Player
Buster Posey Quotes
American
Baseball Player
Casey Stengel Quotes
American
Baseball Player
Charles Barkley Quotes
American
Baseball Player
Derek Jeter Quotes
American
Baseball Player
Eddy Alvarez Quotes
Cuban
Baseball Player
Gabe Kapler Quotes
American
Baseball Player
Hank Aaron Quotes
American
Baseball Player
Joey Votto Quotes
Canadian
Baseball Player
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Quotes
American
Baseball Player
Mickey Mantle Quotes
American
Baseball Player
Pete Rose Quotes
American
Baseball Player
Tim Tebow Quotes
American
Baseball Player
Yogi Berra Quotes
American
Baseball Player
Zaza Pachulia Quotes
Georgian
Baseball Player