If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way? […]
Poetry
Simon Armitage on Poetry
Poetry is about manner as much as it is about matter – the manner in which words behave under certain conditions and in particular surroundings From the Introduction to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
Ted Hughes on the Poet’s Gift
The poet’s only hope is to be infinitely sensitive to what his gift is, and this in itself seems to be another gift that few poets possess. ‘Context’, Winter Pollen Apart from self-knowledge, this is a good argument for feedback – provided you can find an infinitely sensitive critic (who doesn’t mince their words).
Allen Ginsberg on Poetry
Allen Ginsberg pops up in the Dylan documentary No Direction Home and gives this impromptu definition of poetry: Poetry is words that are empowered to make your hair stand on end, that you recognise instantly as being some form of subjective truth that has an objective reality to it, because somebody’s realised it. Then you […]