It hardly seems worthwhile to point out the shortsightedness of those practitioners who would have us believe that the form of the poem is merely its shape.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I am increasingly attracted to restricting possibility in the poem by inflicting a form upon yourself. Once you impose some formal pattern on yourself, then the poem is pushing back. I think good poems are often the result of that kind of wrestling with the form.
A poem in form still has to have voice, gesture, a sense of discovery, a metaphoric connection, as any poetry does.
I believe the poet shouldn't be in the poem at all except as a lens or as ears.
I would come to understand there is no poem separable from its source. I began to see that poems are not just an individual florescence. They are also a vast root system growing down into ideas and understandings. Almost unbidden, they tap into the history and evolution of art and language.
It should here be added that poetry habitually takes the form of verse.
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.
At each moment, a poem might grow into a totally different shape. It is not so much like working in a garden. It is more as if you remade the garden every day.
We know the particular poem, not what it says that we can restate.
As long as there's been poetry, there have been lamentations.
There's a fierce practicality and empiricism which the whole imaginative, lyrical aspect of poetry comes from.
No opposing quotes found.