Accepting Quote by Edmund Clarence Stedman

Every good poet includes a critic, but the reverse is not true.

— William Shenstone

You do not become a critic until it has been completely established to your own satisfaction that you cannot be a poet.

— Theophile Gautier

Critics write out of intellectual exercise, not poets. Poets write straight from the heart.

— Erica Jong

Is encouragement what the poet needs? Open question. Maybe he needs discouragement. In fact, quite a few of them need more discouragement, the most…

— Robert Fitzgerald

All that a critic, as critic, can give poets is the deadly encouragement that never ceases to remind them of how heavy their inheritance…

— Harold Bloom

In truth it may be laid down as an almost universal rule that good poets are bad critics.

— Thomas B. Macaulay

Paradoxically, the simpler poetry is, the more difficult it becomes for a critic to discuss intelligently. Trained to explicate, the critic often loses the…

— Dana Gioia

The way to praise a poet is to write a poem.

— Paul Engle

Poets should ignore most criticism and get on with making poetry.

— Anne Stevenson

If our goal is to write poetry, the only way we are likely to be any good is to try to be as great…

— Donald Hall

“The poet is the sayer, the namer, and represents beauty. He is a sovereign, and stands on the centre. For the world is not…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

All poetry has to do is to make a strong communication. All the poet has to do is listen. The poet is not an…

— Stevie Smith