Allen Tate Quotes

But poetry is my life. Poetry is what matters to me.

The object of poetic activity is essentially language: whatever his beliefs and convictions, the poet is more concerned with words than with what these words designate.

You don't make a poem with ideas, but with words.

It's not easy to define poetry.

When I discovered the lyric poem, that advanced not by narrative steps but by blocks and layers of imagery, I said, 'Gee, I probably could do that. So let me try that.'

I am not quite a poet but I am something of the kind.

Poets don't draw. They unravel their handwriting and then tie it up again, but differently.

I didn't want to deal in poetry. I got rid of that after a few months.

I didn't read poetry seriously until college, when I really began to devour it in a very intense way. I also discovered that a poet is a maker. Before that, I thought a poet was someone who wrote about his own experiences.

I could no more define poetry than a terrier can define a rat.

In every culture, in every language, there is expressive play, expressive word play; there's language use to different purposes that we would call poetry.

People want poetry. They need poetry. They get it. They don't want fancy work.

I think many people love poetry who don't know they love it. People are sometimes afraid of poetry, or they've been introduced to poetry that doesn't speak to them.

I'm not an academic, but I've always loved poetry since I've been small.

If we ask a vague question, such as, 'What is poetry?' we expect a vague answer, such as, 'Poetry is the music of words,' or 'Poetry is the linguistic correction of disorder.'

It should here be added that poetry habitually takes the form of verse.

I've already written 300 space poems. But I look upon my ultimate form as being a poetic prose. When you read it, it appears to be prose, but within the prose you have embedded the techniques of poetry.

Poetry, almost by definition, calls attention to its language and form.

Poetry; a criticism of life under the conditions fixed for such a criticism by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty.

Poetry is a mixture of common sense, which not all have, with an uncommon sense, which very few have.

The cliche is dead poetry.

Poetry is the art of creating imaginary gardens with real toads.

I think the best American poetry is the poetry that utilizes the resources of poetry rather than exploits the defects or triumphs of the poet's personality.

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.

Poetry seems to be the only weapon able to beat language, using language's own means.