Poets on poetry

"All bad poetry is sincere."
                             -Oscar Wilde

"No verse is free for the man who wants to do a good job."
                             -T.S. Eliot

"As regarding rhythm: to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of a metronome."
                             -Ezra Pound

"A poem should not mean / but be."
                             -Archibald Macleish (on imagism)

"I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact & reason"
                             -John Keats

"the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings from emotions recollected in tranquility"
                             -Wordsworth

"Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash."
                             -Leonard Cohen

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.
                             -Mark Strand

"There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money, either."
                             -Robert Graves

"A poem is never finished, only abandoned."
                             -Paul Valéry

"A poet can survive everything but a misprint."
                             -Oscar Wilde