“God made me a business woman, and I made myself a poet.” Summing up her determination to create a poetic identity through deliberate effort · Reported quip, widely cited in biographies Art Poetry
“Sexual love is the most stupendous fact of the universe, and the most magical mystery our poor blind senses know.” Expressing the scale and mystery she perceived in erotic love · Book, John Keats Love Truth
“The poem will not be denied; to refuse to write it would be a greater torture.” Presenting poetic creation as an imperative rather than a voluntary pastime · Memoir, later collected with her poetical works Art Poetry
“I do not suppose that anyone not a poet can realize the agony of creating a poem. Every nerve, even every muscle, seems strained to the breaking point.” Describing composition as an intensely physical as well as mental experience · Memoir, later collected with her poetical works Art Poetry
“I never deny poems when they come; whatever I am doing, whatever I am writing, I lay it aside and attend to the arriving poem.” Describing poetic inspiration as something demanding immediate attention · Essay, The Process of Making Poetry Art Poetry
“Poetry is the most concentrated form of literature; it is the most emotionalized and powerful way in which thought can be presented.” Defining poetry through concentrated thought and emotional force · Tendencies in Modern American Poetry Poetry Truth
“Art is like politics. Any theory carried too far ends in sterility, and freshness is only gained by following some other line.” Arguing that artistic theories must eventually yield to renewal and experiment · Tendencies in Modern American Poetry Art Truth
“Art becomes artificial only when the forms take precedence over the emotion.” Warning that technique becomes empty when it overwhelms genuine feeling · Essay, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Tendencies in Modern American Poetry Art Truth
“Great emotion always tends to become rhythmic, and out of that tendency the forms of art have been evolved.” Connecting artistic form with the natural rhythms produced by strong feeling · Essay, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Tendencies in Modern American Poetry Art Music
“Art, true art, is the desire of a man to express himself, to record the reactions of his personality to the world he lives in.” Defining art as the record of an individual consciousness responding to life · Essay, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Tendencies in Modern American Poetry Art Truth
“For the more important part of the book, the poems must speak for themselves.” Giving the creative work precedence over theoretical explanation · Preface, Sword Blades and Poppy Seed Art Poetry
“Schools are for those who can confine themselves within them. Perhaps it is a weakness in me that I cannot.” A characteristically independent rejection of restrictive artistic schools · Preface, Sword Blades and Poppy Seed Art Poetry
“I cannot see why, because certain manners suit certain emotions and subjects, it should be considered imperative for an author to employ no others.” Defending the artist's freedom to choose different forms for different purposes · Preface, Sword Blades and Poppy Seed Art Poetry
“It is a fluid and changing form, now prose, now verse, and permitting a great variety of treatment.” Celebrating the flexibility available when conventional boundaries are loosened · Preface, Sword Blades and Poppy Seed Art Poetry
“The desire to 'quintessentialize,' to head-up an emotion until it burns white-hot, seems to be an integral part of the modern temper.” Describing modern poetry as an art of concentrated emotional intensity · Preface, Sword Blades and Poppy Seed Art Poetry
“Merely chopping prose lines into lengths does not produce cadence, it is constructed upon mathematical and absolute laws of balance and time.” Rejecting the idea that free verse is simply prose divided into lines · Preface, Sword Blades and Poppy Seed Art Music Poetry
“They are built upon 'organic rhythm,' or the rhythm of the speaking voice with its necessity for breathing, rather than upon a strict metrical system.” Grounding free verse rhythm in the natural movement of speech · Preface, Sword Blades and Poppy Seed Music Poetry
“The poet must be constantly seeking new pictures to make his readers feel the vitality of his thought.” Emphasising fresh imagery as a way of renewing perception · Preface, Sword Blades and Poppy Seed Art Poetry
“The poet with originality and power is always seeking to give his readers the same poignant feeling which he has himself.” Defining poetic craft as the transmission of deeply felt experience · Preface, Sword Blades and Poppy Seed Poetry Truth
“Only a vigorous tree has the vitality to put forth new branches.” Using organic growth as an image for artistic experimentation · Preface, Sword Blades and Poppy Seed Art Nature
“Poetry so full of beauty and feeling, that the study of it is at once an inspiration and a despair to the artist.” Capturing the mixture of inspiration and humility produced by great craftsmanship · Preface, Sword Blades and Poppy Seed Art Beauty Poetry
“Art is as much a function of the Universe as an Equinoctial gale, or the Law of Gravitation.” Elevating art from ornament to something fundamental in existence · Preface, Sword Blades and Poppy Seed Art Nature
“Poets are always the advance guard of literature; the advance guard of life. It is for this reason that their recognition comes so slowly.” Portraying poets as pioneers whose importance is often recognised late · Preface, Tendencies in Modern American Poetry Fame Poetry Time
“Poetry, far more than fiction, reveals the soul of humanity.” Claiming a uniquely revealing role for poetry in human culture · Preface, Tendencies in Modern American Poetry Poetry Truth
