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"In fact a lot of them I think are absolute baloney. Those Charles Olsens and people like that. At first I was interested in seeing what they were up to, what they were doing, why they were doing it. They never moved me in the way that one is moved by true poetry."
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"You need a poetic touch from the outer space? Then you need the moonlight!"
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"I love writing poetry because it's pretty. I love writing pretty."
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"Good poetry does not exist merely for the sake of itself, but rather, is a byproduct of yearning and growth; great poetry canonizes that yearning for the growth of others."
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"I can write no stately proemAs a prelude to my lay;From a poet to a poemI would dare to say.For if of these fallen petalsOne to you seem fair,Love will waft it till it settlesOn your hair.And when wind and winter hardenAll the loveless land,It will whisper of the garden,You will understand."
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"Deep down there is a rose in every heart."
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"At seventeen I tried to write poetry confining myself solely to Anglo-Saxon words - don't know if it helped, but it made me more concrete ..."
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"You know the way of the wind in the night-the desolate alleys my soul takes."
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"The mint from your breath, the milk from your breast, the best of your mind, now in its worst state of condition. From the womb to the tomb, as a mild flower, you break your petals upon blossom, and seize death openly. Leaving your fragrance to spin and dance, one last time before being blown away."
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"Now begins to rise in me the familiar rhythm; words that have lain dormant now lift, now toss their crests, and fall and rise, and falls again. I am a poet, yes. Surely I am a great poet."
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"The secret of poetry is never explained - is always new. We have not got farther than mere wonder at the delicacy of the touch, & the eternity it inherits. In every house a child that in mere play utters oracles, & knows not that they are such. 'Tis as easy as breath. 'Tis like this gravity, which holds the Universe together, & none knows what it is."
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Explore more quotes by Norman MacCaig
"And it's impossible for me to read Henry James."
Reading
"When I talk of hearing a poet's voice speaking, I always think of it as in the presence of the man."
Poetry
"Well, I'm a light traveller. I chuck things away."
Minimalism
"When I go fishing I like to know that there's nobody within five miles of me."
Solitude
"People haven't got the interest in long long works these days. A lack of interest which I share."
People
"And in a way, that's been a help to me, because I take great passions for a particular poet - sometimes it lasts for many years, sometimes only for a while. This happens to everybody."
Help
"I'm very gregarious, but I love being in the hills on my own."
Love
"When I was a teacher, teachers would come into my classroom and admire my desk on which lay nothing whatever, whereas theirs were heaped with papers and books."
Books
"But you'd have a job to find many of my poems which would seem to be very influenced by a particular person."
Job
"If I wrote a play with four characters every single one of them would talk like me regardless of age or sex."
Age
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