There is something about a poet which leads us to believe that he died, in many cases, as long as 20 years before his birth. – James Thurber
Nobody really knows whether they are a poet. I knew I was interested from the age of 15. – James Fenton
We are not concerned with the very poor. They are unthinkable, and only to be approached by the statistician or the poet. – E. M. Forster
The importance of poetry is not measured, finally, by what the poet says but by how he says it. – Mahmoud Darwish
When the poet makes his perfect selection of a word, he is endowing the word with life. – John Drinkwater
The poet is in command of his fantasy, while it is exactly the mark of the neurotic that he is possessed by his fantasy. – Lionel Trilling
Rainer Maria Rilke was admittedly not a Dockers tagger, but a sort of European equivalent: a German poet – in many respects, a charlatan masquerading as a genius who turned out to be a genius. – Richard Flanagan
