James Laughlin Quotes

Maybe it is something to do with age, but I have become fonder of poetry than of prose.

But in a lot of ways my poems are very conventional, and it's no big deal for me to write a poem in either free verse or strict form; modern poets can, and do, do both.

Every now and then I read a poem that does touch something in me, but I never turn to poetry for solace or pleasure in the way that I throw myself into prose.

My favorite poets may not be your bread and butter. I have more favorite poems than favorite poets.

I think that is where poetry reading becomes such an individual thing. I mean I have friend who like poets who just don't say anything to me at all, I mean they seem to me rather ordinary and pedestrian.

Most poetry in the modern age has retreated to the private sphere, turning its back on the political realm.

Are you really going to see Lewis? One of the few people it's worth getting excited over, I think. I know he is a good poet. I daresay he never heard of me, but I wish you would tell him that his work is the joy of my life.

For awhile after you quit Keats all other poetry seems to be only whistling or humming.

I always turn to Frank O'Hara and David Berman's 'Actual Air,' which came out in 1999. He's a poet I haven't tired of.

Modern poets add a lot of water to their ink.

I dislike a great deal of contemporary poetry - all of the past you read is usually quite great - but it is a useful thorn to have in one's side.

The majority of poems one outgrows and outlives, as one outgrows and outlives the majority of human passions.

All good poetry is forged slowly and patiently, link by link, with sweat and blood and tears.

Aging has a wonderful beauty and we should have respect for that.

The most important American love poet in living memory, and certainly one of the most important American poets tout court, Robert Creeley was born in 1926 and raised in eastern Massachusetts.

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

I have never believed that the critic is the rival of the poet, but I do believe that criticism is a genre of literature or it does not exist.

I'd rather let the song live and, as I get older, I'm less absorbed with the clothing. The older I get, I just wanna write good songs.

The youth of an art is, like the youth of anything else, its most interesting period. When it has come to the knowledge of good and evil it is stronger, but we care less about it.

A lot of people feel that the realm of poetry and the realm of the lyric is personal feeling and should rise above politics, which, in fact, good poetry has never done.

I look for poetry in English because it's the only language I read.

I gave up on new poetry myself 30 years ago when most of it began to read like coded messages passing between lonely aliens in a hostile world.

There's not a good poet I know who has not at the beck and call of his memory a vast quantity of poetry that composes his mental library.

Aging can be fun if you lay back and enjoy it.

The public is probably more suspicious of poets than women, and maybe for good reason.