Poet Laureate Quotes

I would love to be the poet laureate of Coney Island.

When you see the poet laureate saying that every child should have read 'Ulysses' and that you're just giving up on children if you think it's elitist - does that include children with special needs or whose first language isn't English?

When I became poet laureate, I was in a slightly uncomfortable position because I think a lot of poetry isn't worth reading.

The worst thing about being the laureate has been the attitude of a tiny minority of adults who haven't liked some of the things I'm supposed to have said and who have used it as an opportunity to be verbally abusive and nasty, but I haven't let it rule my world!

I gotta say - if I clicked on a movie interview, and the first part was all about Walt Whitman, I'd love that article.

If I wasn't Bob Dylan, I'd probably think that Bob Dylan has a lot of answers myself.

It's the combination of the intimate and the public that I find so exciting about being poet laureate.

Bob Dylan's not a hype and a haircut: he's the real thing.

The poet laureate of England talked about murdering Jews on the West Bank.

Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled,On Fames eternall beadroll worthie to be fyled.

As poet laureate, I was asked to be a spokesman for literature.

I was appointed Poet Laureate. It came totally out of the blue because most Poet Laureates had been considerably older than I. It was not something that I even had begun to dream about!

My name was originally John Collins, but I just didn't think it had the flair I needed. I found out the poet laureate of Poland was named Krasinski and so it seemed like a shoe-in for show business.

There are distinct duties of a poet laureate. I plan a reading series at the Library of Congress and advise the librarian. The rest is how I want to promote poetry.

Those who say we should dismantle the role of Poet Laureate altogether, the trick they miss is that being called this thing, with the weight of tradition behind it, and with the association of the Royal family, does allow you to have conversations and to open doors, and wallets, for the good of poetry in a way that nothing else would allow.

Being Poet Laureate made me realize I was capable of a larger voice. There is a more public utterance I can make as a poet.

I've written on public matters, but I don't understand how anyone could tout me as a possible poet laureate when I wrote a poem on the abdication of King Charles III or about the sex life of the Royals... anybody who knew my work would know I'm not a contender.

America has not produced a more salient political musician than Gil Scott-Heron.

If they made a movie about Bob Dylan, I would love to play a young Bob Dylan; I mean, I've got the wild hair.

Few in the Nineties would have ventured to prophesy that the remote dim singer of the Celtic Twilight would, in a new age, become the leading poet of the English-speaking world. None have disputed the claim of William Butler Yeats to that title.

I wondered if people might not have had enough of Simon Armitage and wondered whether I hadn't had enough of Simon Armitage.

People write me from all over the country, asking me, and sometimes even telling me, what they think a poet laureate should do. I found that immensely valuable.

The first thing you see in my hallway is a large 18th-century bust of Milton, who stares at me as I watch TV and reminds me of the grave and committed role of the poet. Although he was blind, Milton had one of the most unswerving gazes of all English poets.

As poet laureate, I was asked to be a spokesman for literature. Then what I decided is I am a spokesman for this other imagination of community - not the one showing up in the market. Nobody was tending to the way we're imaginatively connected to each other.

In the world of British poetry, Carol Ann Duffy is a superstar.