Christopher Isherwood and WH Auden leaving for China on a train, 1938
The poet who writes “free” verse is like Robinson Crusoe on his desert island: he must do all his cooking, laundry and darning for himself. In a few exceptional cases, this manly independence produces something original and impressive, but more often the result is squalor — dirty sheets on the unmade bed and empty bottles on the unswept floor.
from ‘Writing’, The Dyer’s Hand, 1962
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The condition of mankind is, and always has been, so miserable and depraved that, if anyone were to say to the poet: “For God’s sake stop singing and do something useful like putting on the kettle or fetching bandages,” what just reason could he give for refusing? But nobody says this. The self-appointed unqualified nurse says: “You are to sing the patient a song which will make him believe that I, and I alone, can cure him. If you can’t or won’t, I shall confiscate your passport and send you to the mines.” And the poor patient in his delirium cries: “Please sing me a song which will give me sweet dreams instead of nightmares. If you succeed, I will give you a penthouse in New York or a ranch in Arizona.”
from ‘Writing’, The Dyer’s Hand, 1962
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To some degree every American poet feels that the whole responsibility for contemporary poetry has fallen upon his shoulders, that he is a literary aristocracy of one.
from ‘American Poetry’, The Dyer’s Hand, 1962
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Writers, poets especially, have an odd relation to the public because their medium, language, is not, like the paint of the painter or the notes of the composer, reserved for their use but is the common property of the linguistic group to which they belong. Lots of people are willing to admit that they don’t understand painting or music, but very few indeed who have been to school and learned to read advertisements will admit that they don’t understand English.
from The Dyer’s Hand, 1962
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A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.
from ‘Squares and Oblongs’, Poets at Work, 1948
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A craftsman knows in advance what the finished result will be, while the artist knows only what it will be when he has finished it. But it is unbecoming in an artist to talk about inspiration; that is the reader’s business.
from ‘A Poet of the Actual’, Forewords and Afterwords, 1973
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A poet, qua poet, has only one political duty, namely, in his own writing to set an example of the correct use of his mother tongue, which is always being corrupted. When words lose their meaning, physical force takes over.
from ‘Writers at Work’ interviews, Series 4, Paris Review
Thanks to Kk for sending me one of these quotes, which then forced me to search for others.
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
That still guides my moral compass.
Came here via another’s blog. Think I will come back for more.
Hope you stick around. : )
A
I’m in love! I never knew!