John Barton Quotes

27 quotes in 395 categories

• I consider a poem to be a kind of experiment where a number of elements are brought together under test conditions to see how they…
• I have become intrigued with the combining of seemingly unrelated ideas or images, or the drawing upon the many, sometimes dissimilar, meanings a word might…
• The point of an experiment is not to arrive at a predetermined end point, to prove or disprove anything, but to deliver a poem that…
• An experienced reader uses the poem as an agent of inquiry. This makes poetry very exciting, unstable, and interactive.
• Some readers allow their prejudices to blind them. A good reader knows how to disregard inappropriate responses.
• No poem is easily grasped; so why should any reader expect fast results?
• Reading should be a repeat performance.
• You can never step into the same book twice, because you are different each time you read it.
• Most victims of my autobiographical verse are either far too polite, remarkably understanding unaware that I have written poems about them.
• Poetry is but another form of inquiry into the nature of phenomena, using with its own unique procedures and tools.
• In the past, poetry came in the form of spells and chants used to effect change.
• If poetry alters the way in which the reader views the world, then it has had its desired effect.
• The experiment of the poem is mostly intuitive. I write the first draft, pulling in the various elements that interest me, in the hope that…
• I sometimes like to tinker with poems that have failed, ones that I have sent aside. Even years afterward, I will revisit them if there…
• I became intrigued with colour theory. The absurd pronouncements of the Colour Institute, a group that decides what colours are hot each year or season,…
• The poet must decide not to impose his feelings in order to write without sentimentality.
• A literary journal is intended to connect writer with reader; the role of the editor is to mediate.
• I find it exhausting to administer a magazine without an office or paid staff.
• I feel very connected to poets across the country.
• The community of poets I belong to is not as close as it used to be, if only for the fact that our lives have…

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