Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.

Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.

Poetry is plucking at the heartstrings, and making music with them.

Poetry is plucking at the heartstrings, and making music with them.

A poet can survive everything but a misprint.

A poet can survive everything but a misprint.

Doeg, though without knowing how or why,
Made a still a blundering kind of melody;
Spurr'd boldly read more

Doeg, though without knowing how or why,
Made a still a blundering kind of melody;
Spurr'd boldly on, and dash'd through thick and thin,
Through sense and nonsense, never out nor in;
Free from all meaning whether good or bad,
And in one word, heroically mad.

Writing a poem is discovering

Writing a poem is discovering

morning: that first sapphire dome of glow.

morning: that first sapphire dome of glow.

A poem conveys not a message so much as the provenance of a message, an advent of sense.

A poem conveys not a message so much as the provenance of a message, an advent of sense.

Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows, and of lending existence to nothing.

Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows, and of lending existence to nothing.

A poet is a man who manages, in a lifetime of standing out in thunderstorms, to be struck by lightning read more

A poet is a man who manages, in a lifetime of standing out in thunderstorms, to be struck by lightning five or six times.