"I sometimes like to tinker with poems that have failed, ones that I have sent aside. Even years afterward, I will revisit them if there is something about them that I cannot give up on."

Poems, Will, Years

32

Create Your Own Wallpaper

Standard

Customized

"I sometimes like to tinker with poems that have failed, ones that I have sent aside. Even years afterward, I will revisit them if there is something about them that I cannot give up on."

Exlpore more Poems quotes

"Everyone thinks they're going to write one book of poems or one novel."

Marilyn Hacker, American Poet

Poems,

"Almost anything is too much. I am trying in my poems to have the reader be the experiencer. I do not want to be there. It is not even a walk we take together."

Mary Oliver, American Poet

Poems, Trying, Want

"Why does one always ask a writer why they stopped? I am sure everyone finds in any drawer a few dear poems."

Peter Bichsel, Swiss Writer

Poems,

"I would like to be proud of having written some poems that will be remembered, but I will never know whether I will have any reason to be proud of that."

Peter Davison, British Actor

Poems, Reason, Will

"I would not say I chose to write long poems on a conscious level. The long poem has been a relative constant."

John Barton, Canadian Poet

Poems,

"Most victims of my autobiographical verse are either far too polite, remarkably understanding unaware that I have written poems about them."

John Barton, Canadian Poet

Poems, Understanding, Victims

"I didn't think about whether I was writing poems. I was thinking. And the more I was thinking, the more there was I didn't understand."

David Antin, American Poet

Poems, Thinking, Writing

"I tend to like poems that engage me - that is to say, which do not bore me."

Mark Strand, American Poet

Poems,

"Southern poets are still writing narrative poems, poems in forms, dramatic poems."

Robert Morgan, American Soldier

Poems, Poets, Writing

"The notes I have made are not a diary in the ordinary sense, but partly lengthy records of my spiritual experiences, and partly poems in prose."

Edvard Munch, Norwegian Artist

Poems, Prose, Sense, Spiritual

Explore more quotes by John Barton

"In the past, poetry came in the form of spells and chants used to effect change."

Change, Poetry, Effect, Past

"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."

Meaning, Will

"Some readers allow their prejudices to blind them. A good reader knows how to disregard inappropriate responses."

Art, Blind

"I have been told by a member of the board of one of Canada's most prominent literary magazines that a submission of mine once caused a great deal of controversy."

Society, Canada, Controversy, Literary

"If poetry alters the way in which the reader views the world, then it has had its desired effect."

Poetry, Effect, World

"I would not say I chose to write long poems on a conscious level. The long poem has been a relative constant."

Poems,

"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."

Hope, Being, Draft, First

"Most victims of my autobiographical verse are either far too polite, remarkably understanding unaware that I have written poems about them."

Poems, Understanding, Victims

"Writing can sometimes be exploitative. I like to take a few steps of remove in order to respect the privacy of the subject. If readers make the link, they have engaged with the poem."

Art, Order, Privacy, Respect, Writing

"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."

Family, Children, Community, Fact, Jobs