The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion.
One of the surest tests of the superiority or inferiority of a poet is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate mature poets steal bad poets deface what they take and good poets make it into something better or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique utterly different than that from which it is torn the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time or alien in language or diverse in interest.
One of the appeals of William Carlos Williams to me is that he was many different kinds of poet. He tried out many different forms in his own way of, more or less, formlessness. He was also a poet who could be - he was a love poet, he was a poet of the natural order and he was also a political poet.
There is an old Latin quotation in regard to the poet which says 'Poeta nascitur non fit' the translation of which is- the poet is born, not made.
Two opposing forces inhabit the poem: one of elevation or up-rooting, which pulls the word from the language: the other of gravity, which makes it return. The poem is an original and unique creation, but it is also reading and recitation: participation. The poet creates it; the people, by recitation, re-create it. Poet and reader are two moments of a single reality.
It's a big thing to call yourself a poet. All I can say is that I have always written poems. I don't think I'm interested in any discussion about whether I'm a good poet, a bad poet or a great poet. But I am sure, I want to write great poems. I think every poet should want that.
A poet dares to be just so clear and no clearer; he approaches lucid ground warily, like a mariner who is determined not to scrape his bottom on anything solid. A poet's pleasure is to withhold a little of his meaning, to intensify by mystification. He unzips the veil from beauty, but does not remove it. A poet utterly clear is a trifle glaring.
...to be a poet, requires a mythology of the self. The self described is the poet self, to which the daily self (and others) are often ruthlessly sacrificed. The poet self is the real self, the other one is the carrier; and when the poet self dies, the person dies.
If the poet wants to be a poet, the poet must force the poet to revise. If the poet doesn't wish to revise, let the poet abandon poetry and take up stamp-collecting or real estate.
A poet, qua poet, has only one political duty, namely, in his own writing to set an example of the correct use of his mother tongue, which is always being corrupted. When words lose their meaning, physical force takes over.
In order to create it is necessary to destroy; and the agent of destruction in society is the poet. I believe that the poet is necessarily an anarchist, and that he must oppose all organized conceptions of the State, not only those which we inherit from the past, but equally those which are imposed on people in the name of the future.
Poetry is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal but which the reader recognizes as his own.
Poetry is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal which the reader recognizes as his own.
The poet's pen is the true divining rod Which trembles towards the inner founts of feeling; Bringing to light and use, else hid from all, The many sweet clear sources which we have of good and beauty in our own deep bosoms; And marks the variations of all mind As does the needle.
Although the poet has as wide a choice of subjects as the painter, his creations fail to afford as much satisfaction to mankind as do paintings... if the poet serves the understanding by way of the ear, the painter does so by the eye, which is the nobler sense.
Bad feeling is a country no woman want to visit. So they take good feeling any which way it come. Sometime that good feeling come by taking on a different kind of bad feeling.
POET
If not in a place, where are the People weeping?
LIBERAL
They creep weeping in the face, not place.
POET
Is it something with which we may cope
The weeping, the creeping, the peepee-ing, the peeping?