“The word poet continually reminds me of long-hair and seems to me a most detestable form of insult.”

Rejecting conventional poetic affectation in favour of plain 'lines' · Conversation or letter (commonly attested)

• Authenticity
• Poetry
• Poets

“I live in Hartwood, Sullivan Co., N.Y., on an estate of 3500 acres belonging to my brother and am distinguished for corduroy trousers and briar-wood pipes.”

Offering a wry, unpretentious self-portrait · Letter to John Northern Hilliard, 2 January 1896

• Identity
• Self
• Simplicity

“Personally, I like my little book of poems, The Black Riders, better than I do The Red Badge of Courage. The reason is, I suppose, that the former is the more ambitious effort. In it I aim to give my ideas of life as a whole, so far as I know it, and the latter is a mere episode.”

Preferring the broader philosophical scope of his verse to the episodic novel · Letter, written in England (published 1900)

• Ambition
• Life
• Poetry