Portal:Poetry/Quotes archive/2006 archive
This is an archive of article summaries that have appeared in the Quotes section of Portal:Poetry in 2006. For past archives, see the complete archive page.
| “ | I don't think the mystical experience can be verbalized. When the ego disappears, so does power over language. | ” |
| “ | A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom. | ” |
| “ | To have great poets, there must be great audiences. | ” |
| “ | A good poem is one in which the form of the verse and the joining of its two parts seem light as a shallow river flowing over its sandy bed. | ” |
| “ | Art is a house that tries to be haunted. | ” |
| “ | The business of poetry is to harmonise the sadness of the universe | ” |
| “ | Great is the art of beginning, but greater the art is of ending;
Many a poem is marred by a superfluous verse |
” |
| “ | There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money, either. | ” |
| “ | In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on. | ” |
| “ | There is no greater sorrow than to be mindful of the happy time in misery. | ” |
| “ | No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master. | ” |
| “ | Good friend for Jesus sake forbeare
To dig the dust enclosed here |
” |
| “ | Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits. | ” |
| “ | Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage- Minds innocent and quite take that for a hermitage. | ” |
- From Richard Lovelace's To Althea, from Prison
| “ | There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money, either. | ” |
| “ | Dictatorship and authentic literature are incompatible... The writer is the natural enemy of dictatorship. | ” |
| “ | Apes are apes though clothed in scarlet | ” |
| “ | We Poets in our youth begin in gladness;
But thereof come in the end despondency and madness |
” |
| “ | Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, and then for a few close friends, and then for money. | ” |
| “ | And mighty Poets in their misery dead | ” |
| “ | Wit is a sword; it is meant to make people feel the point as well as see it. | ” |
| “ | Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, old Time is still a-flying. And this same flower that smiles today, tomorrow will be dying. | ” |
| “ | Perhaps you should say something
A bit more interesting than what you mean. |
” |
| “ | I tell myself don't wreck a good phrase simply to boost sense | ” |
- Geoffrey Hill, from Without Title
| “ | He affects the metaphysics, not only in his satires, but in his amorous verses, where nature only should reign; and perplexes the minds of the fair sex with nice speculations of philosophy, when he should engage their hearts, and entertain them with the softnesses of love. | ” |
| “ | Tongue nor heart cannot conceive nor name thee! Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope |
” |
- Macduff, in the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare upon discoving the slain body of the king.
| “ | It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll; I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul. | ” |
| “ | A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer. | ” |
| “ | The world in all doth but two nations bear,
The good, the bad; and these mixed everywhere. |
” |
| “ | So the heart be right, it is no matter which way the head lieth. | ” |
| “ | Thou shall know by experience how salt the savor is of others' bread, and how sad a path it is to climb and descend another's stairs. | ” |
| “ | It is always better to avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning. | ” |
- from Beowolf
| “ | Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash. | ” |
| “ | A poet can survive everything but a misprint. | ” |
| “ | A good poem is one in which the form of the verse and the joining of its two parts seem light as a shallow river flowing over its sandy bed. | ” |
| “ | Art is a house that tries to be haunted. | ” |
| “ | The business of poetry is to harmonise the sadness of the universe | ” |
| “ | Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood. | ” |
| “ | Adam, well may we labour, still to dress This garden, still to tend plant, herb, and flower. |
” |
| “ | Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits. | ” |
| “ | Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage- Minds innocent and quite take that for a hermitage. | ” |
- From Richard Lovelace's To Althea, from Prison
| “ | Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise; seek what they sought. | ” |
| “ | Everywhere I go I find that a poet has been there before me. | ” |
| “ | Great is the art of beginning, but greater the art is of ending;
Many a poem is marred by a superfluous verse. |
” |
| “ | I have one of two choices — stay in the post office and go crazy ... or stay out here and play at writer and starve. I decided to starve. | ” |
The Parasite's Defense
In 1964 Soviet authorities charged Joseph Brodsky with "тунеядство" — parasitism. From the transcript of his trial smuggled to the West:
- Judge: And what is your profession in general?
- Brodsky: Poet translator.
- Judge: Who recognized you as a poet? Who enrolled you in the ranks of poets?
- Brodsky: No one. And who enrolled me in the ranks of humanity?
- Judge: Did you study this?
- Brodsky: This?
- Judge: To become a poet. You did not try to finish high school where they prepare, where they teach?
- Brodsky: I didn’t think you could get this from school.
- Judge: How then?
- Brodsky: I think that it ... comes from God.[1]
References[edit]
- ^ The original transcript reads: Судья: А вообще какая ваша специальность? Бродский: Поэт. Поэт-переводчик. Судья: А кто это признал, что вы поэт? Кто причислил вас к поэтам? Бродский: Никто. (Без вызова). А кто причислил меня к роду человеческому? Судья: А вы учились этому? Бродский: Чему? Судья: Чтобы быть поэтом? Не пытались кончить Вуз, где готовят... где учат... Бродский: Я не думал, что это дается образованием. Судья: А чем же? Бродский: Я думаю, это... (растерянно)... от Бога... The translation is taken from Remembering Joseph Brodsky by Cissie Dore Hill at Hoover Institution Archives
- Week 48 2006
- There are certain arts which employ all the means which I have mentioned, such as rhythm and tune and metre--dithyrambic and "nomic" poetry, for example, and tragedy too and comedy. The difference here is that some use all these at once, others use now one now another.
- God damn it, you might think a man had no business to be writing, to be a poet unless some philosophic stinker gave him permission.
| “ | Poetry’s unnat’ral; no man ever talked poetry ‘cept a beadle on boxin’ day, or Warren’s blackin’ or Rowland’s oil, or some o’ them low fellows; never you let yourself down to talk poetry, my boy. | ” |
"I perceived that we in the West were indeed barbarians and foreign devils, and that we knew scarcely anything about poetry." -- Allen Upward (1863 - 1926), diplomat and poet, on his introduction to Chinese literature
"He [the poet] must divest himself of the prejudices of his age or country; he must consider right and wrong in their abstracted and invariable state; he must disregard present laws and opinions, and rise to general and transcendental truths, which will always be the same: he must therefore content himself with the slow progress of his name, contemn the applause of his own time, and commit his claims to the justice of posterity. He must write as the interpreter of nature, and the legislator of mankind, and consider himself as presiding over the thoughts and manners of future generations; as being superior to time and place."
— spoken by Imlac in Samuel Johnson's Rasselas, Chapter X
"Enough! Thou hast convinced me, that no human being can ever be a poet."
— spoken by the Prince, Rasselas, Chapter XI
Q: How would you explain what a poem is to my seven year old?
A: A poem is a compact sequence of unpredictable images. I remember reading about a B-baller called "Half Man Half Amazing". That phrase alone is a poem.
— Vietnamese-American poet Linh Dinh, interview at "Here Comes Everybody" blog, December 14, 2004
(http://herecomeseverybody.blogspot.com/2004/12/linh-dinh-is-author-of-two-collections.html)