Quotes

Clive James

“At a time when almost everyone writes poetry but scarcely anyone can write a poem, it is hard not to wish for a return to some less accommodating era, when the status of a ‘poet’ was not so easily aspired to, and the only hankering was to get something said in a memorable form. Alas we would have to go a long way back.”

F. R. Leavis

“(The poet) is unusually sensitive, unusually aware, more sincere and more himself than the ordinary man can be… He is a poet because his experience is not separable from his interest in words.”