One will never again look at a birch tree, after the Robert Frost poem, in exactly the same way. – Paul Muldoon
The other side of it is that, despite all that, people reach out to poetry at the key moments in their lives. – Paul Muldoon
Thats one of the great things about poetry one realises that one does ones little turn – that youre just part of the great crop, as it were. – Paul Muldoon
Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things. – T.S. Eliot, Tradition and the Individual Talent, 1919