When I came back to New York, it was such a joke because I…

The poet is a man who lives at last by watching his moods. An old poet comes at last to watch his moods as…

— Henry David Thoreau

There has never been a great poet who wasn't also a great reader of poetry.

— Edward Hirsch

When Nature gives a gorgeous rose, Or yields the simplest fern, She writes this motto on the leaves, "To whom it may concern!" And…

— John Godfrey Saxe

I was twenty-nine years old and I wasn't a very good poet and I wasn't a very good novelist, [so] I thought I would…

— Edward Albee

To practice your scales, so to speak, in order play the symphony, is what you have to do as a young poet.

— Rita Dove

“Advice to a Young Poet Don’t spend yourself in the small copper coins of complaint and accusation. Don’t answer those in authority, those who…

— Ondra Lysohorsky

“Today a young poet brought me 75 poems, some of them many pages long, I shall no doubt make an enemy of him again…

— Franz Kafka

I would keep in mind to a young poet that you are entering into something that is very important, that has always been important…

— Edward Hirsch

I think the coming of spring, the stars overhead, the first snowfall and so on are gifts for a child, a young poet.

— Sylvia Plath

As a very young poet, I had been brought up on that dogma that politics was bad for poetry.

— Adrienne Rich

As a young poet, you need corroboration, and that's what publication does.

— Seamus Heaney

Bad luck for the young poet would be a rich father, an early marriage, an early success or the ability to do anything well.

— Charles Bukowski

I think a young poet, or an old poet, for that matter, should try to produce something that pleases himself personally, not only when…

— Philip Larkin

But I'm too old to be written about as a young poet.

— Philip Levine

“She was one of those exceptional children who do still spend time outside, in solitude. In her case nature represented beauty - and refuge.…

— Richard Louv