“The poet is not a man who says things, but one who makes things happen.”

Emphasising poetry’s active effect on readers and the world · Literary criticism (commonly attributed)

• Art
• Poetry

“A poet must be a passionate lover of language.”

Linking poetic achievement with an intense attention to words · Literary criticism (commonly attributed)

• Beauty
• Poetry

“Art itself is nothing more than a reaction to as well as a record of the things one loves or hates, and criticism is merely an annotated explanation of these likes and dislikes.”

Admitting that taste, not impersonality, drives both making and judging · Preface, American Poetry Since 1900

• Art
• Criticism
• Taste