“Not only the cry but the gesture and the accent—and so one goes on—calling up witnesses to the real thing!”

Describing her ambition for poetry to capture lived emotion fully · Letter, 1917

• Emotion
• Expression
• Poetry

“It seems to me that in the cri de coeur one either has or has not the person, and if the author is not right here he is past mending.”

On the essential authenticity required in poetry · Letter to Sydney Cockerell

• Authenticity
• Poetry
• Writing

“I'm burning up my work. I don't know what else to do with it.”

Reflecting her fierce self-criticism and habit of destroying manuscripts · Conversation with Alida Monro

• Destruction
• Self
• Writing

“I'm burning up my work.”

Spoken while destroying old manuscripts used as spills for cigarettes · Conversation with Alida Monro

• Destruction
• Detachment
• Writing

“Religion is like music, one must have an ear for it. Some people have none at all.”

Comparing the capacity for religious feeling to a natural gift for music · Essay, Men and Trees

• Music
• Religion
• Sensitivity