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Poets are always ahead of things in a certain way, their sense of language and their vision.

Poets are like the decathletes of literature.

So the best way to understand poetry, which is made by men, is to imitate, and that goes back to making work as a kind of doorway into new work, as opposed to making work as a mirror of the old work.

The public is probably more suspicious of poets than women, and maybe for good reason.

Poets deal in writing about feelings and trying to find the language and images for intense feelings.

A man may be variously accomplished, and yet be a feeble poet.

Nearly all men and women are poetical, to some extent, but very few can be called poets. There are great poets, small poets, and men and women who make verses. But all are not poets, nor even good versifiers. Poetasters are plentiful, but real poets are rare. Education can not make a poet, though it may polish and develop one.

Poets go through a very tough apprenticeship in the use of words.

Poets wish to profit or to please.