No poet can know what his poem is going to be like until he has written it.
-W. H. Auden
"The Dyer's Hand"
Quotations
Poet
Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.
-T. S. Eliot
"Dante"
A poet's mission is to make words do more work than they normally do, to make them work on more than one level.
-Jay Z
"Decoded"
It is a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it.
-W. H. Auden
Each memorable verse of a true poet has two or three times the written content.
-Alfred De Musset
"Le Poète déchu"
Not everyone who drinks is a poet. Some of us drink because we're not poets.
-Dudley Moore
The poet never asks for admiration; he wants to be believed.
-Jean Cocteau
The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.
-Jean Cocteau
Poets are shameless with their experiences: they exploit them.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
A few moments in a poet’s company teach us more about the essence of art than many a lecture and books.
-Etinne Gilsun
