Serious poetry deals with the fundamental conflicts that cannot be logically resolved: we can state the conflicts rationally, but reason does not relieve us of them. – 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
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
Poets are mysterious, but a poet when all is said is not much more mysterious than a banker. – Allen Tate
Before I was born my mother was in great agony of spirit and in a tragic situation. She could take no food except iced oysters and champagne. If people ask me when I began to dance, I reply, In my mothers womb, probably as a result of the oysters and champagne – the food of Aphrodite. – Isadora Duncan