Contemporary Quote by Robert Graves

I have no desire to dress up my poetry and make it fancy. I want the poem to be as true as humanly possible…

— Adelia Prado

I don't let a poem go into the world unless I feel that I've transformed the experience in some way. Even poems I've written…

— Stephen Dunn

I never deny poems when they come; whatever I am doing, whatever I am writing, I lay it aside and attend to the arriving…

— Amy Lowell

Sometimes I feel too transparent in my poetry, but that's what I think the beauty of poetry is, because as transparent as the author…

— Masiela Lusha

Everyone is their own kind of poet - you can't miss it when their words are written down.

— Sheila Heti

Contemporary poets are skeptical and suspicious even, or perhaps especially, about themselves. They publicly confess to being poets only reluctantly, as if they were…

— Wislawa Szymborska

I don't want to write poems that are just really clear about how I'm aware of all the traps involved in writing poetry; I…

— Ben Lerner

I don't now whether I am a poet or not, but I'm quite sure that I write with the transparency of the soul and…

— Jean-Paul Malfatti

I never think of my audience when I write a poem. I try to write out of whatever is haunting me; in order for…

— Rita Dove

I think my poems immediately come out of the sensuous and emotional experiences I have.

— Sylvia Plath

There's always some reason not to be writing and I regret the times I give in to that, because then writing feels strange -…

— Joan Larkin

A decade ago, my poems were precious little boxes, small and claustrophobic, completely inward gazing. I didn't possess the command to speak beyond the…

— Robin Beth Schaer