Poetry Forum

Post your favorite quotes from poets on poetry.

"Literature bores me, especially great literature." -John Berryman, Dream Song 14

"'Doctor, I don't think you're going to find this very healthy and clear, but I really would like to stop working forever—never work again, never do anything like the kind of work I’m doing now—and do nothing but write poetry and have leisure to spend the day outdoors and go to museums and see friends. And I’d like to keep living with someone — maybe even a man — and explore relationships that way. And cultivate my perceptions, cultivate the visionary thing in me. Just a literary and quiet city-hermit existence.' Then he said 'Well, why don’t you?' I asked him what the American Psychoanalytic Association would say about that, and he said … 'if that is what you really feel would please you, what in the world is stopping you from doing it?'" -Allen Ginsberg

"A poem should be equal to / Not true." -Archibald MacLeish, Ars Poetica

"Prose,—words in their best order; poetry,—the best words in their best order." -Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"What do they think they're playing at, then, these Poetry Wallahs?
Grub St. reviewing its own lame valedictory bunk."

- Peter Reading, Ukulele Music

There's a pretty good compilation of quotes on this very site, actually. The Ogden Nash line is especially fine.

"Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo." -Catullus, in response to critics of his unusual (for its time) poetry. It means "I will fuck you in the ass and mouth."

benjamin wrote:"Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo." -Catullus, in response to critics of his unusual (for its time) poetry. It means "I will fuck you in the ass and mouth."

That's not really about poetry though is it?

brianedwards wrote:

benjamin wrote:"Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo." -Catullus, in response to critics of his unusual (for its time) poetry. It means "I will fuck you in the ass and mouth."

That's not really about poetry though is it?

The poem it comes from talks about how a poet should be free to write about whatever he wants. I picked that line because it's a witty response to charges that his poetry was overly sexual.

benjamin wrote: it's a witty response

oh yes, very witty.

Ros wrote:

benjamin wrote: it's a witty response

oh yes, very witty.

brianedwards wrote:

Ros wrote:

benjamin wrote: it's a witty response

oh yes, very witty.

Yes, I thought so too. It is probably even funnier in Latin.

Latin or Latrine?


J.

"A poet is a nightingale who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds."
— Percy Bysshe Shelley