Poetry Promotion Quotes

In Northern Ireland, helicopters are not usually used to promote poetry.

I don't think poetry has a readership anywhere, really, that's that big.

Thanks partly to the kind of poets that we now have and partly to funding, there's been a gigantic shift in the way poetry is perceived... Poems on the Underground, poets in schools, football clubs, zoos.

Poetry is as vital as ever. The teaching of poetry reading, however, is sluggish and, often, slovenly. It needs to be expanded in the school curriculum and be more a feature of society at large. The newspapers should all be carrying a daily poem. It should be as natural as reading a novel.

There are distinct duties of a poet laureate. I plan a reading series at the Library of Congress and advise the librarian. The rest is how I want to promote poetry.

Those who say we should dismantle the role of Poet Laureate altogether, the trick they miss is that being called this thing, with the weight of tradition behind it, and with the association of the Royal family, does allow you to have conversations and to open doors, and wallets, for the good of poetry in a way that nothing else would allow.

I've been most happy to be an advocate for the kinds of grassroots things that people are doing who care about poetry.

I want to be the best advocate and promoter for poetry that I can be.

One of my great surprises when I was in America was about twenty-five years ago in Harvard, hearing Randall Jarrell deliver a bitter attack on the way poets were neglected. Yet there were about two thousand people present, and he was being paid five hundred dollars for delivering this attack.

People who buy 'The National Enquirer' would buy poetry. They should be given a choice. I'm absolutely serious.

I just submitted what I had to the 'Octopus Books' contest open reading period, and they said they wanted to publish my poetry book. Then I started to publish more and more poetry because people would ask me to do readings or ask me submit something for their journal.

I'm so happy to be an advocate for poetry.

The next big push in my life is trying to get poetry popular again.

I'm not sure about prizes. I don't know how far you can seriously raise public consciousness about poetry. Having a 'National Poetry Day,' like a 'No Smoking Day,' is just shelving the problem. Things which should by rights be every day are not best served by these things.

I want to promote poetry to the point where you got all the baldhead kids running around doing poetry, getting the music out of the way and having only words, the spoken word, and then see what happens.

In a general way, I want to be a kind of flag-waver, bunting hanger-up, drum-beater, you name it, for poetry.