"I've never read a political poem that's accomplished anything. Poetry makes things happen, but rarely what the poet wants."

Poetry,

26

Create Your Own Wallpaper

Standard

Customized

"I've never read a political poem that's accomplished anything. Poetry makes things happen, but rarely what the poet wants."

Exlpore more Poetry quotes

"For awhile after you quit Keats all other poetry seems to be only whistling or humming."

F. Scott Fitzgerald, American Author

Poetry,

"When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses."

John F. Kennedy, American President

Poetry, Power, Arrogance, Concern

"Old wives keep in memory word of things that once were needful for the wise to know."

J. R. R. Tolkien, English Novelist

Poetry, Beauty, Peace, Happiness, Love

"Everything one invents is true, you may be perfectly sure of that. Poetry is as precise as geometry."

Gustave Flaubert, French Novelist

Poetry, Geometry, May

"Women do not have as great a need for poetry because their own essence is poetry."

Karl Schlegel, German Philosopher

Poetry, Women

"From what the moderns want, we must learn what poetry should become; from what the ancients did, what poetry must be."

Karl Schlegel, German Philosopher

Poetry, Want

"In the grueling light that passed for day..."

Cormac McCarthy, American Writer

Poetry, Light, Life, Description

"Poetry is an art, and chief of the fine art; the easiest to dabble in, the hardest in which to reach true excellence."

Edmund C. Stedman, American Poet

Poetry, Art, Excellence

"I despair of ever writing excellent poetry."

Isaac Rosenberg, English Poet

Poetry, Despair, Writing

"The rudiment of verse may, possibly, be found in the spondee."

Edgar Allan Poe, American Poet

Poetry, May

Explore more quotes by Howard Nemerov

"When I was starting to write, the great influence was T.S. Eliot and after that William Butler Yeats."

Influence

"I think there was a revolution in poetry, associated chiefly with Eliot and Pound; but maybe it is of the nature of revolutions or of the nature of history that their innovations should later come to look trivial or indistinguishable from technical tricks."

History

"Robert Frost had always said you mustn't think of the last line first, or it's only a fake poem, not a real one. I'm inclined to agree."

Literature

"I do insist on making what I hope is sense so there's always a coherent narrative or argument that the reader can follow."

Hope

"It may be said that poems are in one way like icebergs: only about a third of their bulk appears above the surface of the page."

Art

"I like all my children, even the squat and ugly ones."

Family

"I liked the kid who wrote me that he had to do a term paper on a modern poet and he was doing me because, though they say you have to read poems twice, he found he could handle mine in one try."

Poems

"A chronicle is very different from history proper."

History

"Obvious enough that generalities work to protect the mind from the great outdoors; is it possible that this was in fact their first purpose?"

Work

"I think there's one thing which distinguishes our art - we don't consider. We don't think. We write a little verse because it comes to us."

Art