Pastoral Resources

With several different kinds of poetry to choose from, a man would decide that he would like best to be an epic poet, and he would set out, in conscious determination, on an epic poem.

Traditional matter must be glorified, since it would be easier to listen to the re-creation of familiar stories than to quite new and unexpected things; the listeners, we must remember, needed poetry chiefly as the re-creation of tired hours.

The reason can only be this: heroic poetry depends on an heroic age, and an age is heroic because of what it is, not because of what it does.

By the general process of epic poetry, I mean the way this form of art has constantly responded to the profound needs of the society in which it was made.

But the gravest difficulty, and perhaps the most important, in poetry meant solely for recitation, is the difficulty of achieving verbal beauty, or rather of making verbal beauty tell.

That is to say, epic poetry has been invented many times and independently; but, as the needs which prompted the invention have been broadly similar, so the invention itself has been.

Epic poetry exhibits life in some great symbolic attitude. It cannot strictly be said to symbolize life itself, but always some manner of life.

If epic poetry is a definite species, the sagas do not fall within it.

Poetry is the work of poets, not of peoples or communities; artistic creation can never be anything but the production of an individual mind.

With Shakespeare and poetry, a new world was born. New dreams, new desires, a self consciousness was born. I desired to know to know myself in terms of the new standards set by these books.

There's one of my new poems actually - is a good example of where my poetry has ended up. My earlier river poetry was more like a cross between Shelley and Dylan Thomas.

Well - I started writing - probably in the early 60s and by say '65-'66 I had read most of the poetry that had been published - certainly in the 20 years prior to that.

Well I guess the plan was to write poetry and publish books and make a living from writing poetry. That was a pretty ambitious plan I guess.

Poetry is a succession of questions which the poet constantly poses.

That's a wonderful change that's taken place, and so most poetry today is published, if not directly by the person, certainly by the enterprise of the poet himself, working with his friends.

If we ask a vague question, such as, 'What is poetry?' we expect a vague answer, such as, 'Poetry is the music of words,' or 'Poetry is the linguistic correction of disorder.'

Once every five hundred years or so, a summary statement about poetry comes along that we can't imagine ourselves living without.

Poetry leads us to the unstructured sources of our beings, to the unknown, and returns us to our rational, structured selves refreshed.

The poet exposes himself to the risk. All that has been said about poetry, all that he has learned about poetry, is only a partial assurance.

Probably all the attention to poetry results in some value, though the attention is more often directed to lesser than to greater values.