Anne Stevenson Quotes

Rational thoughts never drive people's creativity the way emotions do.

If you look at the content of songs people write, it's usually about the things they know best.

Turin is a city which entices a writer towards vigor, linearity, style. It encourages logic, and through logic it opens the way towards madness.

I think great art comes from being open and creative with somebody, and of course, if feelings start getting involved in that, it can either make things fantastic or really messy.

I used to spend a lot of time dreaming and writing poetry.

The unconscious mind writes poetry if it's left alone.

Joy is a part of my process. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that poetry, as a practice, necessitates a sense of joy. It's exhilarating to come into contact with the things we write into being. And a real sense of play and abandon – even when we are relying on hard-won technique, and even when the aim is deadly serious. How often do we get the excuse to stop, think, and then stop thinking altogether and try to listen to what sits behind our outside of our thoughts? Poets are lucky.

For Poesy alone can tell her dreams, With the fine spell of words alone can save Imagination from the sable charm And dumb enchantment. Who alive can say, ‘Thou art no Poet may’st not tell thy dreams?’ Since every man whose soul is not a clod Hath visions, and would speak, if he had loved And been well nurtured in his mother tongue. Whether the dream now purpos’d to rehearse Be poet’s or fanatic’s will be known When this warm scribe my hand is in the grave.

A picture can say 1000 words but it can also inspire you to write 1000 more.

Art, whatever form it takes, requires hard work, craftsmanship and creativity. As a writer, I know my grammar, cadence, the music of prose, and the art of the narrative.

There is no lighter burden, nor more agreeable, than a pen.

Money is everywhere but so is poetry. What we lack are the poets.

I like rhyme because it is memorable, I like form because having to work to a pattern gives me original ideas.

I think the writing of literature should give pleasure. What else should it be about? It is not nuclear physics. It actually has to give pleasure or it is worth nothing.

I love to create, and to me, the ultimate freedom of expression is a blank canvas or a block of clay to capture whatever emotions your imagination gives it.

Let me read you some of my poetry. My poetry just takes me to another level.

A grain of poetry suffices to season a century.

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

True creativity often starts where language ends.

A poet never takes notes. You never take notes in a love affair.

The creative act amazes me. Whether it's poetry, whether it's music, it's an amazing process, and it has something to do with bringing forth the old out into the world to create and to bring forth that which will rejuvenate.

Poetry is not a matter of feelings, it is a matter of language. It is language which creates feelings.

We especially need imagination in science. It is not all mathematics, nor all logic, but it is somewhat beauty and poetry.

A poet is someone who stands outside in the rain hoping to be struck by lightning.

No verse can give pleasure for long, nor last, that is written by drinkers of water.