The poet is in the end probably more afraid of the dogmatist who wants to extract the message from the poem and throw the poem away than he is of the sentimentalist who says, “Oh, just let me enjoy the poem.” – Robert Penn Warren, “The Themes of Robert Frost,” Hopwood Lecture, 1947

Ive got a book of poetry by the bed, one of these big collections that goes back to the Greeks and Romans. – Martin C. Smith

Let my life as Poet begin. I want the life of the Poet. I have labored for over twelve years, one thousand pages of prose. Now, I want the easiness of poetry. The brevity of the poem. – Maxine Hong Kingston