Beginnings Quote by Seamus Heaney

What is the poem, after it is written? That is the question. Not where it came from or why.

— Allen Tate

Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning, every poem an epitaph.

— Anonymous

Each poem leads you to the questions it makes sense to ask it.

— Helen Vendler

I do think the author ought to be able to give a good reason for the way things are in his poem. Not a…

— James Dickey

I'm very conscious of the fact that every line should have a cadence to it. It should contribute to the progress of the poem.…

— Billy Collins

After the last line of a poem, nothing follows except literary criticism.

— Joseph Brodsky

“no poet can know what his poem is going to be like until he has written it.”

— W.H. Auden

“A poem isn't finished until it's heard.”

— Jade Foster

“Poetry is like...first all you have is... A line weaving through your mind Like the tail of a child's kite Unfettered by reason or…

— Vaddey Ratner

“...a poem is only finished when the last reader has read it or listened to it.”

— Cees Nooteboom

“Poetry is dying first. It'll be absorbed into prose sooner or later.”

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

“The real meaning of a poem is to stop time.”

— Ralph Fletcher