William Shenstone Quotes

I always thought that poetry is the verdict that others give to a certain kind of writing. So to call yourself a poet is a kind of dangerous description. It's for others; it's for others to use.

All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.

Gregory Corso used to get really pissed when people called Bob Dylan a 'poet.' After writing poetry for a few years, I can understand that.

No bad man can be a good poet.

If it is an imperfect word, no external circumstance can heighten its value as poetry.

Anticipating that most poetry will be worse than carrying heavy luggage through O'Hare Airport, the public, to its loss, reads very little of it.

I think I'm a very good reader of poetry, but obviously, like everybody, I have a set of criteria for reading poems, and I'm not shy about presenting them, so if people ask for my critical response to a poem, I tell them what works and why, and what doesn't work and why.

I would love to be the poet laureate of Coney Island.

The only nice poets I've ever met were bad poets, and a bad poet is not a poet at all - ergo, I've never met a nice poet.

I liked the kid who wrote me that he had to do a term paper on a modern poet and he was doing me because, though they say you have to read poems twice, he found he could handle mine in one try.

Well, I like to write poetry. I'm a published poet.

Usually a life turned into a poem is misrepresented.

In the world of poetry there are would-be poets, workshop poets, promising poets, lovesick poets, university poets, and a few real poets.

I sometimes talk about the making of a poem within the poem.

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

The only real evidence that any critic may bring before his gaze is the finished poem.

Well, if this is poetry, I'm certainly never going to write any myself.

Many poets, as you know, are not good readers.

The vast majority of free verse is ghastly. Utterly ghastly. No one reads it. No one listens to it.

There are no poetic ideas; only poetic utterances.

I cannot say I'm a poet. That's for someone when they take in consideration where they can bestow 'poet' on. I can't do it. But I would be disingenuous if I didn't say that my intention is poetry.

Anyone who holds a pen these days thinks he or she is a poet.

Romantic poetry had its heyday when people like Lord Byron were kicking it large. But you try and make a living as a poet today, and you'll find it's very different!

While I've had a great distaste for what's usually called song in modern poetry or for what's usually called music, I really don't think of speech as so far from song.

Poetry itself hasn't been well served by poets who fled to the margins.