In Russia

 

In Russia - Poets are considered a danger to the political system and are sent into Asylums.
What a compliment to the Russian People
that poetry could move them so.
In NZ Poets are not considered a danger.
No one reads poetry
Poets aren't sent to Asylums but they are considered mad nonetheless
--
From the introduction to "Concrete Reality"

 

Tim Shadbolt

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Forty years ago, when Dylan Thomas read, he spent half the program reciting other poets' work. Hardly a self-effacing man, he was nevertheless humble before his art. Today most readings are celebrations less of poetry than of the author's ego. No wonder the audience for such events usually consists entirely of poets, would-be poets, and friends of the author.

 

Dana Gioia

 

Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.

 

Thomas Stearns (T. S.) Eliot

 

I no longer feel I'll be dead by thirty; now it's sixty. I suppose these deadlines we set for ourselves are really a way of saying we appreciate time, and want to use all of it. I'm still writing, I'm still writing poetry, I still can't explain why, and I'm still running out of time. Wordsworth was sort of right when he said, "Poets in their youth begin in gladness/ But thereof comes in the end despondency and madness." Except that sometimes poets skip the gladness and go straight to the despondency. Why is that? Part of it is the conditions under which poets work — giving all, receiving little in return from an age that by and large ignores them — and part of it is cultural expectation — "The lunatic, the lover and the poet," says Shakespeare, and notice which comes first. My own theory is that poetry is composed with the melancholy side of the brain, and that if you do nothing but, you may find yourself going slowly down a long dark tunnel with no exit. I have avoided this by being ambidextrous: I write novels too. But when I find myself writing poetry again, it always has the surprise of that first unexpected and anonymous gift.

 

Margaret Atwood

 

Three things, according to poets, are considered bliss in Iceland: hot rye-cakes, plump girls, and cold buttermilk.

 

Halldor Laxness

 

There are two classes of poets — the poets by education and practice, these we respect; and poets by nature, these we love.

 

Ralph Waldo Emerson