Ignorance Quote by Alison Hawthorne Deming

Creating a poem is a continual process of re-creating your ignorance, in the sense of not knowing what's coming next.

— Derek Walcott

Poems are like dreams: in them you put what you don't know you know.

— Adrienne Rich

I want to preserve a certain unknowing about my own poems - perhaps because unknowing is in itself a useful poetic thirst. To move…

— Jane Hirshfield

Poetry is often the art of overhearing yourself say things you didn't know you knew. It is a learned skill to force yourself to…

— David Whyte

I have never started a poem yet whose end I knew. Writing a poem is discovering.

— Robert Frost

Poems come out of wonder, not out of knowing.

— Lucille Clifton

Poetry is indispensable --if I only knew what for.

— Jean Cocteau

I've learned a lot as a writer about poetry.

— Jacqueline Woodson

Poems come from incomplete knowledge.

— Diane Wakoski

I don't want to write poems that are just really clear about how I'm aware of all the traps involved in writing poetry; I…

— Ben Lerner

I wish you would read a little poetry sometimes. Your ignorance cramps my conversation.

— Anthony Hope

I have written some poetry that I don't understand myself.

— Carl Sandburg