Bob Kaufman

The Beat poet Bob Kaufman had this to say about poetry:

"I live alone, like pith in a tree.

My teeth rattle,

like musical instruments.

In one ear a spider spins its web of eyes,

In the other a cricket chirps all night,

This is the end,

Which art, that proves my glory has brought me.

I would die for Poetry."

Thornton Wilder

Thornton Wilder, winner of the Plitzer Prize and the National book award said, "There's nothing like eavesdropping to show you that the world outside your head is different from the world inside your head."

He also was quote as having said: "The test of an adventure is that when you're in the middle of it, you say to yourself, 'Oh, now I've got myself into an awful mess; I wish I were sitting quietly at home.' And the sign that something's wrong with you is when you sit quietly at home wishing you were out having lots of adventure."

Paul Verlaine on writing

Paul Verlaine wrote:

"You must let your poems ride their luck
On the back of the sharp morning air
Touched with the fragrance of mint and thyme ...
And everything else is Literature."

Nelso Algren quote

Nelson Algren, author of A Walk on the Wild Side, set in Louisiana and made into a motion picture, said:

"A certain ruthlessness and a sense of alienation from society is as essential to creative writing as it is to armed robbery."

Honoré de Balza

Honoré de Balzac was an incredible, prolific writer. I wonder if it was because he drank 50 cups of coffee daily. So, writers, is this the secret to success?

Still one must take into consideration that he died when he was only 51.

At what price fame?

Quote from Jeanette Winterson on poetry

I read an article in the NY Times on March 9th about the author Jeanette Winterson

and thought it was so good, that I am quoting her here on my little blog. So here's one for all you poets out there, struggling with the "tough language."

“When people say that poetry is a luxury, or an option, or for the educated middle classes, or that it shouldn’t be read at school because it is irrelevant, I suspect that the people doing the saying have had things pretty easy. A tough life needs a tough language—and that is what poetry is.”

Jeanette Winterson, author, of: Why Be Happy, When You Can Be Normal?

Poem "Oxymoronic"

Oxymoronic—

I understand the word now—

It’s seeing this snow flutter and fall

to cover cottonwoods just leafing out,

to smother pansies, tulips and daffodils—

the fresh-mown emerald grass on the golf course

in Jeremy Ranch

To these expressions:

gigantic shrimp,

and steel magnolias,

I add this: remnant, residual, linger-

ing winter snow-covered spring blossoming.