To know anything of a poet but his poetry is, so far as the poetry is concerned, to know something that may be entertaining, even delightful, but is certainly inessential. – John Drinkwater
We recognise in the finished art, which is the result of these conditions, the best words in the best order – poetry and to put this essential poetry into different classes is impossible. – John Drinkwater
There can be no proof that Blakes lyric is composed of the best words in the best order only a conviction, accepted by our knowledge and judgment, that it is so. – John Drinkwater
So it is in poetry. All we ask is that the mood recorded shall impress us as having been of the kind that exhausts the imaginative capacity if it fails to do this the failure will announce itself either in prose or in insignificant verse. – John Drinkwater