How does one happen to write a poem: where does it come from? That is the question asked by the psychologists or the geneticists of poetry. – Allen Tate
There is probably nothing wrong with art for arts sake if we take the phrase seriously, and not take it to mean the kind of poetry written in England forty years ago. – Allen Tate
Dramatic experience is not logical it may be subdued to the kind of coherence that we indicate when we speak, in criticism, of form. – Allen Tate
Poets are mysterious, but a poet when all is said is not much more mysterious than a banker. – Allen Tate
The flowery Path of Poetry but ill accords with the thorny Mazes of the Law; in the one I have wandered with rapture from Infancy, and I have endeavoured to grace the other with a simple but lasting Ornament—Integrity of Heart. – Charles Snart, “Dedication, to Robert Lowe, Esq. Oxton,” 1807 January 1st, Newar