John Cooper Clarke Quotes

When I discovered the lyric poem, that advanced not by narrative steps but by blocks and layers of imagery, I said, 'Gee, I probably could do that. So let me try that.'

Nearly all men and women are poetical, to some extent, but very few can be called poets. There are great poets, small poets, and men and women who make verses. But all are not poets, nor even good versifiers. Poetasters are plentiful, but real poets are rare. Education can not make a poet, though it may polish and develop one.

I'm a writer who likes to be influenced.

I have been writing poetry since 1975. My first poetry book was published in 1986.

I work best in rhyme and meter. I was most confident of myself in that way.

The few bad poems which occasionally are created during abstinence are of no great interest.

The most important American love poet in living memory, and certainly one of the most important American poets tout court, Robert Creeley was born in 1926 and raised in eastern Massachusetts.

In 1971, when I was 29, I wrote my first volume of poetry. I am a poet, and I have published four books of my poems.

Poems have a different music from ordinary language, and every poem has a different kind of music of necessity, and that's, in a way, the hardest thing about writing poetry is waiting for that music, and sometimes you never know if it's going to come.

There are no poetic ideas; only poetic utterances.

So the best way to understand poetry, which is made by men, is to imitate, and that goes back to making work as a kind of doorway into new work, as opposed to making work as a mirror of the old work.

I've been writing poetry seriously since about 2008, 2009.

I have also written some poems which have not been collected in a volume.

I began to write poetry in high school, and would ride miles over sandy roads in the fine hills around Cedar Rapids, repeating the lines over and over until I had them right, making some of the rhythm of the horse help.

I could start with Mandelstam, who was a huge influence on my early writing.

My favorite poets may not be your bread and butter. I have more favorite poems than favorite poets.

I never think about poetry except when I'm writing it. I mean my poetry.

The impact of any particular writer on your own work is hard to discern.

I have piles of poetry books in the bathroom, on the stairs, everywhere. The only way to write poetry is to read it.

In the world of poetry there are would-be poets, workshop poets, promising poets, lovesick poets, university poets, and a few real poets.

I work very hard on all my poems, but most of the work consists of trying not to sound as if I had worked. I try to make them sound as natural as possible, but within a quite strict form, which to my ears has a lot to do with musical rhythm and sound.

Nobody really knows whether they are a poet. I knew I was interested from the age of 15.

I could tell you which writer's rhythms I am imitating. It's not exactly plagiarism, it's falling in love with good language and trying to imitate it.

I feel that I'm a poet first. Not only was poetry the first genre in which I wrote, it's the genre that serves as the basis for my practice as a writer.

I sometimes talk about the making of a poem within the poem.