The scholars and poets of an earlier time can be read only with a dictionary to help.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I was reading the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about everything.
I don't know if younger poets read a lot of, you know, the poets - the established poets. There was a lot of pretty boring stuff to sort of put up with and to add to, to make something vital from.
Knowing some Greek helped defuse forbidding words - not that I counted much on using them. You'll find only trace elements of this language in the poem.
Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand.
The greatest masterpiece in literature is only a dictionary out of order.
I think that as a poet, I am always concerned about history and baring witness to history. But so often, it's through the research that I do, the reading.
The poet's other readers are the ancient poets, who look upon the freshly written pages from an incorruptible distance. Their poetic forms are permanent, and it is difficult to create new forms which can approach them.
To a historian libraries are food, shelter, and even muse.
The oldest books are only just out to those who have not read them.
I am grateful for - though I can't keep up with - the flood of articles, theses, and textbooks that mean to share insight concerning the nature of poetry.