Poetry criticism at its worst today is mean in spirit and spiteful in intent, as if determined to inflict the wound that will spur the artist to new heights if it does not cripple him or her. — David Lehman Copy Share Image
There is an air of last things, a brooding sense of impending annihilation, about so much deconstructive activity, in so many of its guises; it is not merely postmodernist but preapocalyptic. — David Lehman Copy Share Image
Poetry criticism at its worst today is mean in spirit and spiteful in intent, as if determined to inflict the wound that will spur… — David Lehman Copy Share Image
Words can have no single fixed meaning. Like wayward electrons, they can spin away from their initial orbit and enter a wider magnetic field.… — David Lehman Copy Share Image
If you're not paying for it through the health plan, you pay for it in the emergency room. — David Lehman Copy Share Image
The best song lyrics seem to me so artful, so brilliant, so warm and humorous, with both passion and wit, that my admiration is… — David Lehman Copy Share Image
“…When a woman loves a man, they have gone to swim naked in the stream on a glorious July day with the sound of… — David Lehman Copy Share Image
I am completing a book I began back in 2002 called 'Poems in the Manner of.' 'The Matador of Metaphor' is from this manuscript.… — David Lehman Copy Share Image
Jargon is the verbal sleight of hand that makes the old hat seem newly fashionable; it gives an air of novelty and specious profundity… — David Lehman Copy Share Image
Obscurantism is the academic theorist's revenge on society for having consigned him or her to relative obscurity - a way of proclaiming one's superiority… — David Lehman Copy Share Image
“When a woman loves a man, they have gone to swim naked in the stream on a glorious July day with the sound of… — David Lehman Copy Share Image
If you have too good a time writing hostile reviews, you'll injure not only your sensibility but your soul. — David Lehman Copy Share Image
“When she says margarita she means daiquiri. When she says quixotic she means mercurial. And when she says, "I'll never speak to you again,"… — David Lehman Copy Share Image
“How like a winter has been my hard spring away from you, my harp. --Psalm” — David Lehman Copy Share Image
