top of page
.png){kind=small}
"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."
Standard
Customized
Exlpore more Society quotes
"Your water is in the bottles, and my water is in the bucket, but we are brothers? I am collecting garbage, and you are in the bed, but we are sisters? My fingers are broken, and your hands are so soft, but we are family? Your God is like an angel, and my God is like an evil, but we are equal? My stomach is empty, and your stomach is so big, but we are humans?"
"We...advance toward a state of society in which not only each man but every impulse in each man claims carte blanche."
"People are very busy; they are so busy that when they walk in the crowds they see no one, no one but themselves; they hear no voice, no voice but their own voice!"
"In a materialistic society, the dead body of a rich man's dog is regarded as a corpse; that of a poor man, a carcass."
"Poverty is like a crumb that sits at a table, and starves itself to death."
"The action or inaction of any government does not negate the Personal Responsibility of the citizens."
Explore more quotes by John Barton
"I have always been very obsessed with time. Time's passage makes us all very vulnerable and because we all experience it in our own way, it can make us feel very alone."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Poets have to be sensitive to their audience, but it does not mean that they censor themselves. I realise my audience is diverse. Some will read with empathy and curiosity while others will take offense."
"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."
"We are comfortable with the fact that we cannot know personally what happened in the world before we were born, yet we are uncomfortable with the notion that we will stop engaging with time at some point in the future."
bottom of page