Traditional Verse Quotes

I think of myself as a poet. I grew up with poetic influences - what I know from my background is the bardic poetry, which came down through oral tradition.

If a poem is not memorable, there's probably something wrong. One of the problems of free verse is that much of the free verse poetry is not memorable.

The grand style is available now only in old poems, museums, and parodies.

Old-fashioned poetry, but choicely good.

Most poetry is very formal, but when a modern poet is formal he gets more attention for it than old poets did.

Poets these days, like artists and composers, have won for themselves almost unlimited freedom. You can pass yourself off as a painter without being able to draw, as a composer without being conscious of key relationships, and as a poet without making yourself familiar with traditional verse forms.

We do have to learn poetry at school. Poetry is interesting to me, particularly Chinese poetry. It's like an ancient form of song. There's five sentences, seven sentences - they're very different from English poetry. Chinese poetry is much more rigorous. You can only use this many words, and they will form some kind of rhythm so people can actually sing it. To me, poetry is quite abstract but also quite beautiful.