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"I consider a poem to be a kind of experiment where a number of elements are brought together under test conditions to see how they will interact to create meaning or relevance."
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"Nothing is as important as your calling and purpose in life."
"But does it make any sense at all to know that it ends badly for all of us, even the happiest of us, and that we all lose everything that matters in the end-and yet to know as well, despite all this, as cruelly as the game is stacked, that it's possible to play it with a kind of joy?To try to make some meaning out of all this seems unbelievably quaint. Maybe I only see a pattern because I've been staring too long. But then again, to paraphrase Boris, maybe I see a pattern because it's there."
"Be sure that you go to the author to get at his meaning, not to find yours."
Explore more quotes by John Barton
"Some readers allow their prejudices to blind them. A good reader knows how to disregard inappropriate responses."
"The experiment of the poem is mostly intuitive. I write the first draft, pulling in the various elements that interest me, in the hope that their being combined will lead to some kind of insight."
"The community of poets I belong to is not as close as it used to be, if only for the fact that our lives have become busier: jobs, children, and the like."
"Most victims of my autobiographical verse are either far too polite, remarkably understanding unaware that I have written poems about them."
"I became intrigued with colour theory. The absurd pronouncements of the Colour Institute, a group that decides what colours are hot each year or season, amused me."
"A literary journal is intended to connect writer with reader; the role of the editor is to mediate."
"The point of an experiment is not to arrive at a predetermined end point, to prove or disprove anything, but to deliver a poem that reveals much about the process taken."
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