Encouragement Quote by Harold Bloom

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

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

— Thomas B. Macaulay

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

— Erica Jong

“In the land of poetry commentary, you will encounter those who take poetry too lightly, and those who take poetry too seriously. The former…

— Jasper Sole

Too much is demanded by the critic, attempted by the poet.

— John Crowe Ransom

A critic must accept what is best in a poet, and thus become his best encourager.

— Edmund Clarence Stedman

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 critics could never mortify me out of heart - because I love poetry for its own sake, - and, tho' with no stoicism…

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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

“Poetry is a life-cherishing force. For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something…

— Mary Oliver

“Poetry is a life-cherishing force. For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something…

— Mary Oliver