Books Quote by William Stafford

poets are privileged to utter more than they can always quite explain, bringing up from the mind's unplumbed depths tokens of the nature of…

— Vernon Lee

It is not enough for poems to be fine; they must charm, and draw the mind of the listener at will.

— Horace

“Good or bad, positive or negative, there is no comment more insulting to a poet than one displaying that you have not properly read…

— Jasper Sole

“Writers whose thoughts are expressed with clarity and precision are assumed by readers to be superficial. Where the meaning is obscured, then readers give…

— Friedrich Nietzsche

“Poetry provides a vehicle that takes me to places that logic won't go. It is a way of understanding the incomprehensible.”

— John A. Vanek

“Poetry is sometimes cryptic because we don’t always want things easily understood. Painful truth is hard enough as it is, but sometimes we want…

— Cody Edward Lee Miller

“When I write poetry, I’ll write it down, or a tiny bit of it, and then have to depend on the reader to bring…

— William Anderson

“The fact that a good poem will never wholly submit to explanation is not its deficiency but its very life. One lives every day…

— John Ciardi

“A poem isn't a good poem, until you need it.”

— J. David Gray

“Your poetry is mysterious. Do you intend me to comprehend you, or are you hoping that I mistake my own dullness for your wisdom?”

— Anne Fortier

“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

“To my way of thinking the function of the poet is to make us aware of what we know and don't know we know.”

— William S. Burroughs