'Of course poetry is irrelevant to the "real" world of power and politics, but so is philosophy, painting, music and any other human activity where something genuine can be found.' — Charles Simic, The Age, 9 March 2003
'Form is a straitjacket in the way that a straitjacket was a straitjacket for Houdini.' — Paul Muldoon, The Irish Times, 19 April 2003
'What's extraordinary about ballet, and I think the same is true of poetry, is that you have to learn the steps... You do the exercises over and over again until your body screams with pain and then you have to infuse it with some other element to make it look effortless and lighter than air.' — Adam Thorpe, The Independent, 17 May 2003'Poetry teaches us that it is possible to have two opposing thoughts at once, which our master cultural narratives seem to deny.' — Edward Hirsch, Five Points, Vol. 2 No. 2, 2003
'If you have doubts about the poem you have written, the kind of doubts that make you want to ask a friend what he or she thinks, don't bother. Trust the doubts. — Wesley McNair, Mapping the Heart, Carnegie Mellon, 2003
'Trying to write a good poem is like running off a cliff to see if you can fly. Most of the time you can't, but every once in a while something happens.' — Marvin Bell, American Poetry Review, January/February 2003
(From PoetryDaily.)
