Explaining Quote by Philip Larkin

“They think the way to be a poet is to wear funny clothes and write sideways on the page.”

— Richard Yates

“Poems are not for explaining," she said, her tone as bored and faintly scornful as his. "They are for pretty girls to read aloud.…

— Emily Horner

Some people swear by writing courses, but whether it really helps American poetry, I have doubts.

— Robert Morgan

Poetry is a sleep-maker for that which sits up late in us listening for the footfall of the future on to-day's doorstep.

— Laura Riding

Poems tend to have instructions for how to read them embedded in their language.

— Matthea Harvey

Poetry is mostly hunches.

— John Ashbery

“They're just people that write poems that get published and anthologized all over the place but they're not poets.”

— J.D. Salinger

Poetry is something that happens in universities, in creative writing programs or in English departments.

— Mark Strand

American poetry is a mess. Long live American poetry.

— David Biespiel

“Writing poetry is like having sex with the universe and the language is just a condom.”

— TRIPURARI

“Making it in poetry The young teller at the credit union asked why so many small checks from universities? Because I write poems I…

— Bob Hicok

We all write poems; it is simply that poets are the ones who write in words.

— John Fowles