One of the rules of Greek lament poetry is that it mustn't mention the dead by name in case of invoking a ghost. Maybe the 'Iliad,'... →
Alice Oswald
At eight, I made a commitment to poetry. Until then, I thought I'd be a policeman. But I went a whole night without sleeping, and the next day... →
I think it's often assumed that the role of poetry is to comfort, but for me, poetry is the great unsettler. It questions the established order... →
My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.
Wilfred Owen
Never fear: Thank Home, and Poetry, and the Force behind both.
I have been in love with Emily Dickinson's poetry since I was 13, and, like an anonymous post on findagrave.com says, 'Dear Emily - I hope I... →
Helen Oyeyemi
Hebrew as a contemporary language, especially for poetry, is no longer the language of the Bible; but neither is it not the language of the Bible.
Cynthia Ozick
I certainly derived my skills as a prose writer from my scrutiny of poetry and of the individual word. But schools don't do things like that... →
Camille Paglia
Writing poetry, which for me was then saying how I felt about this and that, didn't help me to understand the world I lived in.
Grace Paley
I developed a definition - which I think becomes less and less accurate as poetry moves into the world - that poetry was a way of speaking to the... →