For me, there is a paradox in poetry, which is like the paradox in tragedy. You have the most terrible subject, but… — Tony Harrison Copy Share Image
Why shouldn't poetry address what happened yesterday and be published in the newspaper? — Tony Harrison Copy Share Image
I love being on the road with others, with a camera, but also being alone writing poetry. — Tony Harrison Copy Share Image
A lot of my activity in the theatre, and even in writing poems, was a kind of retrospective aggro on the English… — Tony Harrison Copy Share Image
I've written on public matters, but I don't understand how anyone could tout me as a possible poet laureate when I wrote… — Tony Harrison Copy Share Image
I wanted to learn Latin and Greek and become a poet and acquire power over language. I only understand this clearly in… — Tony Harrison Copy Share Image
Coming from a very inarticulate family made me try to speak for those who can't express themselves and created a need for… — Tony Harrison Copy Share Image
Poetry is all I write, whether for books or readings or for the National Theatre or for the opera house and concert… — Tony Harrison Copy Share Image
I've always had the wish, the need, and the obsession to become a public poet. — Tony Harrison Copy Share Image
Looking back, fire images have been constant in my poetry. As a boy, it was my job to light the fire each… — Tony Harrison Copy Share Image
Theatre has to be theatrical. It has to draw attention to itself, like poetry. — Tony Harrison Copy Share Image
The Greek tragic mask is one of my main metaphors for the role of the poet. The eyes of the tragic mask… — Tony Harrison Copy Share Image
I think poems belong as much in the news pages as the literary pages. A lot of people throw aside the literary… — Tony Harrison Copy Share Image
Statues are one of the ways I try to test the traditions of European culture against the most modern destructive forces. I… — Tony Harrison Copy Share Image
The first thing you see in my hallway is a large 18th-century bust of Milton, who stares at me as I watch… — Tony Harrison Copy Share Image
You can make poems out of anger as well as tenderness. You can make poetry out of anything. It can be the… — Tony Harrison Copy Share Image
I have always disliked the idea of an arts ghetto in which poetry is kept on a life-support system. — Tony Harrison Copy Share Image
A poem, once it's written, is meant to be read with the inner voice of the person who reads it. — Tony Harrison Copy Share Image
I hate being called poet/dramatist/translator/director. 'Poet' covers it all for me. — Tony Harrison Copy Share Image
“Poetry's the speech of kings. You're one of those Shakespeare gives the comic bits to: prose! All poetry (even Cockney Keats?) you… — Tony Harrison Copy Share Image
I was well read and knew languages, but I didn't want to become Ezra Pound. I wanted to write poetry that people… — Tony Harrison Copy Share Image
You get early inoculation against the idea of success if you're a poet. When I published my first collection of sonnets, I… — Tony Harrison Copy Share Image
For me, there is a paradox in poetry, which is like the paradox in tragedy. You have the most terrible subject, but it's in… — Tony Harrison Copy Share Image
Why shouldn't poetry address what happened yesterday and be published in the newspaper? — Tony Harrison Copy Share Image
I love being on the road with others, with a camera, but also being alone writing poetry. — Tony Harrison Copy Share Image
“Smokers of the world unite! On t'count o' three, all light up, right? 1-2-3... You've all been cowed. I've changed the law and it's… — Tony Harrison Copy Share Image
A lot of my activity in the theatre, and even in writing poems, was a kind of retrospective aggro on the English teacher who… — Tony Harrison Copy Share Image
I hate the anglicanisation of culture, the idea that culture is genteel. It's not genteel. — Tony Harrison Copy Share Image
Not becoming 'something' scares me the most. I just want to be remembered for something great. — Tony Harrison Copy Share Image
I think it's the tendency to want to create gods and monotheistic absolutes and absolute certainties that is the continual temptation in human thought… — Tony Harrison Copy Share Image
There's a kind of despair about whether art can really do anything, but you have to incorporate that despair into the way you work.… — Tony Harrison Copy Share Image
I really admire the great Japanese artists who could change their name three times in a lifetime. You could get rid of one and… — Tony Harrison Copy Share Image
