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1
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A poem should not mean
But be.
(Archibald MacLeish (1892-1982), U.S. poet. Ars Poetica (l. 23-24). . .
New Oxford Book of American Verse, The. Richard Ellmann, ed. (1976) Oxford University Press.)
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Archibald MacLeish
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2
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Although those notes, in conformity with custom, come after the poem, the reader is advised to consult them first and then study the poem with their help, rereading them of course as he goes through its text, and perhaps after having done with the poem consulting them a third time so as to complete the picture.
(Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977), Russian-born U.S. novelist, poet. Pale Fire, "Foreword," (1962).
Kinbote's fictional foreword in the novel.)
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Vladimir Nabokov
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3
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the hunger of this poem is legendary
it has taken in many victims
back off from this poem
it has drawn in yr feet
back off from this poem
it has drawn in yr legs
(Ishmael Reed (b. 1938), U.S. poet. Beware: Do Not Read This Poem (l. 18-22). . .
Norton Anthology of Poetry, The. Alexander W. Allison and others, eds. (3d ed., 1983) W. W. Norton & Company.)
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Ishmael Reed
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4
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Poetry has no goal other than itself; it can have no other, and no poem will be so great, so noble, so truly worthy of the name of poem, than one written uniquely for the pleasure of writing a poem.
(Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), French poet, critic. "New Notes on Edgar Poe," part IV (1859).)
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Charles Baudelaire
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5
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The poem must resist the intelligence
Almost successfully.
(Wallace Stevens (1879-1955), U.S. poet. "Man Carrying Thing.")
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Wallace Stevens
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6
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A poem need not have a meaning and like most things in nature often does not have.
(Wallace Stevens (1879-1955), U.S. poet. "Adagia," Opus Posthumous (1959).)
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Wallace Stevens
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7
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The great poem must have the stamp of greatness as well as its essence.
(Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), U.S. philosopher, author, naturalist. A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849), in The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, vol. 1, p. 403, Houghton Mifflin (1906).)
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Henry David Thoreau
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8
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I have never felt a placard and a poem are in any way similar.
(Kristin Hunter (b. 1931), African American author. Black Women Writers at Work, ch. 6, by Claudia Tate (1983).
On why her writing was not directly "political.")
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Kristin Hunter
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