#poe

THE THOUGHTFUL LOVER Deny yourself all half things. Have it or leave it. But it will keep—or it is not worth the having. Never start anything you can't finish— However do not lose faith because you are starved! She loves you she says. Believe it —tomorrow. But today the particulars of poetry that difficult art require your whole attention. ↗

— William Carlos Williams

#art

Pruned my subconscious. Discovered new shoots. ↗

— Sally Jo Martine

#contemporary-fairytale #fiber-art #grief #illustrated-fable #inspiration

It is not metres, but a metre-making argument that makes a poem,—a thought so passionate and alive that like the spirit of a plant or an animal it has an architecture of its own, and adorns nature with a new thing. The thought and the form are equal in the order of time, but in the order of genesis the thought is prior to the form. ↗

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

#creation #nature #poetry #architecture

The Resistance is a moral certainty, not a poetic one. The true poet never uses words in order to punish someone. His judgment belongs to a creative order; it is not formulated as a prophetic scripture. ↗

— Salvatore Quasimodo

#certainty #creative #formulated #his #judgment

Writing poetry is the hard manual labor of the imagination. ↗

— Ishmael Reed

#imagination #labor #manual #manual labor #poetry

The end of poetry is not to create a physical condition which shall give pleasure to the mind... The end of poetry is not an after-effect, not a pleasurable memory of itself, but an immediate, constant and even unpleasant insistence upon itself. ↗

— Laura Riding

#constant #create #end #even #give

Complexity is not an aesthetic criterion. It is a quality associated only with division and organization of labor. ↗

— Christopher Caudwell

#art #beauty #economics #poetry #truth

To whom shall I offer this book, young and sprightly, Neat, polished, wide-margined, and finished politely? To you, my Cornelius, whose learning pedantic, Has dared to set forth in three volumes gigantic The history of ages—ye gods, what a labor!— And still to enjoy the small wit of a neighbor. A man who can be light and learned at once, sir, By life's subtle logic is far from a dunce, sir. So take my small book—if it meet with your favor. The passing of years cannot dull its sweet savor. ↗

— Catullus

#poetry #age

I despair of ever writing excellent poetry. ↗

— Isaac Rosenberg

#ever #excellent #i #poetry #writing

A poet's work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep. ↗

— Salman Rushdie

#frauds #going #name #poet #point