Ian Hamilton Finlay Quotes

To write regular verses destroys an infinite number of fine possibilities, but at the same time it suggests a multitude of distant and totally unexpected thoughts.

If you know what you are going to write when you're writing a poem, it's going to be average.

Let me read you some of my poetry. My poetry just takes me to another level.

I love the feeling of creating pictures in someone's mind just by spelling out the right lyrical combination.

And if they haven't got poetry in them, there's nothing you can do that will produce it.

I must say, when I reread myself, it's the poetry I tend to look at. It's the most exciting to write, and it's over the quickest.

I've written poetry since I was in the first grade, and it wasn't until I was a little bit older that I realized poetry could be put to music and become a song.

In those days, it didn't take much imagination to come up with something that required great lyric development skills. You just thought of an experience that you might have gone through, and write it down.

When I discovered the lyric poem, that advanced not by narrative steps but by blocks and layers of imagery, I said, 'Gee, I probably could do that. So let me try that.'

You don't have to be a renowned artist like Q-Tip to try your hand at poetry. You don't need any special equipment - that's the beauty of it.

I like rhyme because it is memorable, I like form because having to work to a pattern gives me original ideas.

It's hard to write a song about reality because reality doesn't rhyme.

I despair of ever writing excellent poetry.

I love to create interesting textures with language. You can do it as long as it seems like a discovery.

I try not to be overly literal. When I'm writing songs, I write down a lot of words, and then I try to simplify it. I like to give people hints or words that make visual pictures for them.

I am not at all clear what free verse is anymore. That's one of the things you learn not to know.

I'm a magpie in my fiction, taking whatever looks shiny and curious to line the nest of my story.

Once they're on paper, they're gone. I like to do as much with the words, as far as image goes.

I don't write poems and put them to music. Just let things flow.

A poet in history is divine, but a poet in the next room is a joke.

I write a lot, and very often I write a couple of lines that are particularly revealing in some kind of way. And then as a few more lines get added and a piece gets added, eventually the song pretty much takes over and you can't really find a way to change those things.

I've read some of your modern free verse and wonder who set it free.

The good poet sticks to his real loves, those within the realm of possibility. He never tries to hold hands with God or the human race.

I like to write poetry.

I don't think poetry is something that can be taught. We can encourage young writers, but what you can't teach them is the very essence of poetry.