James Broughton Quotes

There are only three things in the world, one is to read poetry, another is to write poetry, and the best of all is to live poetry.

A life is not sufficiently elevated for poetry, unless, of course, the life has been made into an art.

I don't live for poetry. I live far more than anybody else does.

There are two types of poets: People who write poetically about their lives, and poets that live poetically and write about it.

I like to write poetry.

I started writing poetry when I was six. I had this teacher who didn't believe the poems I'd bring in were mine because they were dark and sad. But I wrote about what I experienced in my childhood.

I find it painful when I'm without anything. But I work in multiple fields. If I can't write, I find myself taking photographs. I can go on the road and perform. But the most important thing for me is writing, and when I hit those walls, it's painful.

Writing songs always trumps whatever else was on the schedule, it really is the most important and can be so fickle, you have to grab it when it's there.

When a man's life becomes poetry, becomes a song, becomes a work of art, a creativity, he has become a sannyasin. Whether he knows it or not, it does not matter. The word 'sannyas' does not matter; what matters is the content.

In your language you have a form of poetry called the sonnet…There are fourteen lines, I believe, all in iambic pentameter. That’s a very strict rhythm or meter…And each line has to end with a rigid pattern. And if the poet does not do it exactly this way, it is not a sonnet…But within this strict form the poet has complete freedom to say whatever he wants…You’re given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you.

From when I was a kid I wanted to write. It was so important to me that I was writing my own material.

You say to yourself, Well, this poem isn't going to be any good, but I'll write it anyway.

One, something emotional has to be at stake. There has to be something important for me that I'm writing about. And then two, I have to have a formal idea. Something has to be being worked out in poetry.

Poetry is like pooping. If there is a poem inside of you, it has to come out. Sometimes it can be really difficult and take longer than you'd like (it may even be painful), but other times it can be really easy and happen much faster than you expected. But either way - it is important, and it feels so much better when it's done.

There's very little of the intentional about the business of writing poetry, as least as far as I can see.

Nearly everybody in San Francisco writes poetry. Few San Franciscans would admit this, but most of them would rather like to have their productions accidentally discovered.

We want to be poets of our life first of all in the smallest most everyday matters.

The kind of poetry I write, lyric poetry, I think is really concerned with intimacy, with mystery. That needn't be religious mystery, there are mysteries to do with everyday life.

I write poetry to figure things out. Any time I’m trying to wrap my head around something, poetry is like a puzzle-solving strategy for me.

Nearly everybody is looking for something brave to do. I don't know why people shouldn't write poetry. That's brave.

Writing poetry is a state of free float.

There is something about writing poetry that brings a man close to the cliff's edge.

When I say be creative I don't mean that you should all go and become great painters and great poets. I simply mean let your life be a painting, let your life be a poem.

This quality becomes important at a time when almost everyone is a poet. And as I said, we live in an age where almost everybody is a poet, but scarcely anyone can write a poem.

A life lived for art, is never a life wasted.