Cutting Quote by Helen Frost

Poetry is very crafted. You can't have too many words. It needs compression. It has to be spare, just the right number of words.

— Barbara Feldon

If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out

— George Orwell

My goal is to strip things down so that you need just the right amount of words or shape to convey what you need…

— Maya Lin

You don't make a poem with ideas, but with words.

— Stephane Mallarme

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

When a poem is really finished, you can't change anything. You can't move words around. You can't say, 'In other words, you mean.' No,…

— W. S. Merwin

A lot of times, I write and have to scrap it. You don't know what I'm talking about because the words are too much,…

— Earl Sweatshirt

“More words DO NOT make a poem bigger!”

— Katerina Stoykova Klemer

I don't write poetry and then strum some chords and then fit the words on top of the chords.

— Andrew Bird

So difficult it is to show the various meanings and imperfections of words when we have nothing else but words to do it with.

— John Locke

I have a new method of poetry. All you got to do is look over your notebooks... or lay down on a couch, and…

— Allen Ginsberg

When putting words together is good to do it with nicety and caution, your elegance and talent will be evident if by putting ordinary…

— Horace