“And I believe we are good workmen, dextrous and clean in our handling of gold and silver and precious — or even semi-precious — stones.”

She defends formal lyric craft as goldsmith's work rather than raw confession · Essay, Jewelled Bindings, The New Republic, 5 December 1923

• Art
• Craft
• Poetry

“A deliberate art, perhaps, but as such it is a discipline and a struggle not to be too impetuously scorned.”

She answers the modernist sneer at rhyme and measure by calling craft a hard practice · Essay on her choice of traditional forms, Collected Prose

• Craft
• Discipline
• Form

“Yes, it would be a pity that a first-rate poet should be turned into a second-rate poet by marrying a third-rate poet.”

A dry verdict on her match with William Rose Benét, delivered with what Wilson called her harsh laugh · Conversation, reported by Edmund Wilson

• Marriage
• Poets
• Wit