Helen Vendler Quotes

We all write poems; it is simply that poets are the ones who write in words.

I can recite poetry, but I cannot write it.

Well, I still write poetry, but I wouldn't call myself a poet.

I like to write poetry.

Poetry is an art, the easiest to dabble in, but the hardest to reach true excellence.

This proves that great lyric poetry can die, be reborn, die again, but will always remain one of the most outstanding creations of the human soul.

I've written poetry most of my life.

poetry is where the language is renewed.

Poetry has been the guardian angel of humanity in all ages.

I believe that only poetry counts ... A great novelist is first of all a great poet.

The most exciting thing is to read a poem out loud for the first time.

I love poetry and I've kept everything I've written.

Poetry is a packsack of invisible keepsakes.

A poet's work consists less in seeking words for his ideas than in seeking ideas for his words and predominant rhythms.

I never even considered writing a career option. I just liked the play of words. I was certainly interested in story, but the stories I was telling then were in narrative verse and prose poems, short and succinct, except for one novel-length poem written in narrative couplets.

There's little question that short stories, like poetry, don't get the respect they deserve in the culture - but what can you do? Like Canute, one cannot fight the sea, you have to go with your love, and hope one day, things change.

First of all I think that poetry is very noble and I always have with me the sense of the nobility of poetry.

No verse which is unmusical or obscure can be regarded as poetry whatever other qualities it may possess.

As a prose writer, I work with language; and those who work with language turn to poetry for renewal.

When a book, any sort of book, reaches a certain intensity of artistic performance it becomes literature.

I want to write because I have the urge to excel in one medium of translation and expression of life. I can't be satisfied with the colossal job of merely living. Oh, no, I must order life in sonnets and sestinas and provide a verbal reflector for my 60-watt lighted head.

Poets, when they write of love, give themselves and everyone else away!

Very nice couplet, although there are dull stretches.

. . . it is through poetry that we give name to those ideas which are-until the poem-nameless and formless, about to be birthed, but already felt.

Poetry has never been a favorite American pastime.