Success is counted sweetest By those who ne'er succeed. To comprehend a nectar Requires sorest need.
...a poem is just a little machine for remembering itself
Look around - there's only one thing of danger for you here - poetry
I think poetry should be alive. You should be able to dance it.
Someone says: 'Whom do you write for?' I reply: 'Do you read me?' If they say 'yes', I say, 'Do you like it?' If they say 'No,' then I say, 'I don't write for you'.
Truly fine poetry must be read aloud. A good poem does not allow itself to be read in a low voice or silently. If we can read it silently, it is not a valid poem: a poem demands pronunciation. Poetry always remembers that it was an oral art before it was a written art. It remembers that it was first song.
It's easier to quote poets than to read them.
A poet looks at the world the way a man looks at a woman.
I can't understand these chaps who go round American universities explaining how they write poems: it's like going round explaining how you sleep with your wife.
Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand.