Edward Hirsch Quotes

With me it's the whole thing, it's the conceit, the idea, what the poem is saying. And it goes on just as long as is necessary to say what needs to be said.

Clarity, clarity, surely clarity is the most beautiful thing in the world, A limited, limiting clarity I have not and never did have any motive of poetry But to achieve clarity.

For poets today or in any age, the choice is not between freedom on the one hand and abstruse French forms on the other. The choice is between the nullity and vanity of our first efforts, and the developing of a sense of idiom, form, structure, metre, rhythm, line - all the fundamental characteristics of this verbal art.

The talent of a true writer and poet is in the ear.

Poetry is not only a set of words which are chosen to relate to each other; it is something which goes much further than that to provide a glimpse of our vision of the world.

Poetry is something I love to do. Good poetry has an amazing ability to be communicative before it's even understood. I get emotional just from the beauty of words.

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

All poetry has to do is to make a strong communication. All the poet has to do is listen. The poet is not an important fellow. There will also be another poet.

Jigging veins of rhyming mother wits.

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

A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.

I am always pleased to be asked to write a poem.

Poetry and lyrics are very similar. Making words bounce off a page.

Verse in itself does not constitute poetry. Verse is only an elegant vestment for a beautiful form. Poetry can express itself in prose, but it does so more perfectly under the grace and majesty of verse. It is poetry of soul that inspires noble sentiments and noble actions as well as noble writings.

Lyrics need to be good, but they don't need to be obvious right away.

A poet is a professional maker of verbal objects.

A novelist can get by on story, but the poet has nothing but the words.

I like to write poetry.

As a lyricist, you love to hear other great lyrics or other great concepts.

I like the way words go together and I like the gamesmanship of writing poetry. It is such a challenge.

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.

I studied poetry in college and for a year in an MFA program. As time went on, my poems got more and more complicated. What I was really trying to do was tell stories.

I was a serious poet for quite a while and had little notebooks filled with poetry.

The poet is someone, I think, who's interested in registering experience immediately or giving you the sense of immediacy and directness.

Actually, I'm working on a book of poetry.