The Heart Can Think Of No Devotion

A Poet Must Never Make A Statement Simply Because It Sounds Poetically Exciting; He Must Also Believe It To Be True." - W. H. Auden "a Poem...begins As A Lump In The Throat, A Sense Of Wrong, A Homesickness, A Lovesickness...it Finds The Thought And The Thought Finds The Words.

Humor Is The Most Engaging Cowardice.

Poetry Begins In Trivial Metaphors, Pretty Metaphors, "grace" Metaphors, And Goes On To The Profoundest Thinking That We Have. Poetry Provides The One Permissible Way Of Saying One Thing And Meaning Another. People Say, "why Don’t You Say What You Mean?" We Never Do That, Do We, Being All Of Us Too Much Poets. We Like To Talk In Parables And In Hints And In Indirections - Whether From Diffidence Or Some Other Instinct.

There Are Three Things, After All, That A Poem Must Reach: The Eye, The Ear, And What We May Call The Heart Or The Mind. It Is The Most Important Of All To Reach The Heart Of The Reader.

Like A Piece Of Ice On A Hot Stove The Poem Must Ride On Its Own Melting. . . . Read It A Hundred Times; It Will Forever Keep Its Freshness As A Metal Keeps Its Fragrance. It Can Never Lose Its Sense Of A Meaning That Once Unfolded By Surprise As It Went.