No poetry that I'm aware of, however bad or glorious, has ever left somebody a worse person than they were before they read it.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Poetry is partly sympathy, don't you think? If it's any good, it gets people to think about others' points of view.
It is my belief that many who think they dislike poetry are really poetical in their natures and are indebted to it, more than they imagine, for the success they may have achieved, even in practical pursuits, and for the enjoyment their lives have afforded them.
As things get worse, poetry gets better because it becomes more necessary.
Hmmm. I think a lot of people can write poems that are howls of anguish. I think I've probably written such things and then torn them up.
Written poetry is worth reading once, and then should be destroyed. Let the dead poets make way for others.
I despair of ever writing excellent poetry.
Poetry criticism at its worst today is mean in spirit and spiteful in intent, as if determined to inflict the wound that will spur the artist to new heights if it does not cripple him or her.
Oh, I'm a pretty bad poet. This has been corroborated by others.
When I was a young man, I understood that poetry was two things - it was difficult to understand, but you could understand that the poet was miserable. So for a while there, I wrote poems that were hard to understand, even by me, but gave off whiffs of misery.
I don't think I've ever read poetry, ever.