Poetry Consumption Quotes

I think poetry always lives its life, and people come to it and people go away from it, 'people' in the sense of larger numbers of people. It's as though you begin to think that poetry is a resource, and that at certain times people seem to need it or want it or can find sustenance in it, and at other times they can't.

I don't think poetry has a readership anywhere, really, that's that big.

I'm all for poetry catching up with technology, and just as there are iTunes, I think we should have iPoems. I mean, people should be able to walk around with their earbuds in and listening to poems on their iPod.

More people write poetry than read it.

Any reflection about poetry should begin, or end, with this question: who and how many read poetry books?

I have been eating poetry.

People who buy 'The National Enquirer' would buy poetry. They should be given a choice. I'm absolutely serious.

In my life, I've seen enormous increase in the consumption of poetry. When I was young, there were virtually no poetry readings.

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth. There is no happiness like mine. I have been eating poetry.

And there are a lot more people reading poetry, but there are not so many people reading an individual poet.

Today the U.S. is farther from being nourished by poetry than it was a hundred years ago, when books of poems were best-sellers.

More modern poetry is written than read.

Reading a good poem can give me a far bigger kick than a novel. But it's not something I can keep doing. It would be like shooting up 10 times a day.

I think that the dark side of MFA programs is that they're generating more poets than the culture can absorb and there are more people writing poetry than possibly read it or can certainly earn a living around it.

Be not so set upon poetry, as to be always poring on the passionate and measured pages. Let not what should be sauce, rather than food for you, engross all your application. Beware of a boundless and sickly appetite for the reading of poems which the nation now swarms withal; and let not the Circaen cup intoxicate you. But especially preserve the chastity of your soul from the dangers you may incur, by a conversation with muses no better than harlots.