John Barton Quotes (43 Quotes)


    I would not say I chose to write long poems on a conscious level. The long poem has been a relative constant.

    We anticipated it. We were not surprised by it. We were set up to handle the fake, but the kid made a play. He is a playmaker.

    We are comfortable with the fact that we cannot know personally what happened in the world before we were born, yet we are uncomfortable with the notion that we will stop engaging with time at some point in the future.

    Jake has done a nice job, but all three of our receivers have, but people worry about Jake on the deep ball.

    No poem is easily grasped; so why should any reader expect fast results?


    A literary journal is intended to connect writer with reader; the role of the editor is to mediate.

    In the past, poetry came in the form of spells and chants used to effect change.

    The poet must decide not to impose his feelings in order to write without sentimentality.

    The greatest satisfaction comes from publishing interesting poems and well written, thoughtful critical material, and to help build a community.

    I sometimes like to tinker with poems that have failed, ones that I have sent aside. Even years afterward, I will revisit them if there is something about them that I cannot give up on.

    An experienced reader uses the poem as an agent of inquiry. This makes poetry very exciting, unstable, and interactive.

    To me many short poems read and write like beginnings that simply whet my appetite; I want to get over that.

    The reader's challenge is to replicate the experiment by reading the poem and to draw their own conclusions.

    The community of poets I belong to is not as close as it used to be, if only for the fact that our lives have become busier: jobs, children, and the like.

    Because the title poem is about one man's response to being infected with HIV, I can understand why readers would focus the book around the pandemic.

    We have had trouble with the power running game the past four weeks,

    Poetry is but another form of inquiry into the nature of phenomena, using with its own unique procedures and tools.

    Most victims of my autobiographical verse are either far too polite, remarkably understanding unaware that I have written poems about them.

    If poetry alters the way in which the reader views the world, then it has had its desired effect.

    I feel very connected to poets across the country.

    I have always been very obsessed with time. Time's passage makes us all very vulnerable and because we all experience it in our own way, it can make us feel very alone.

    Some readers allow their prejudices to blind them. A good reader knows how to disregard inappropriate responses.

    I find it exhausting to administer a magazine without an office or paid staff.

    The point of an experiment is not to arrive at a predetermined end point, to prove or disprove anything, but to deliver a poem that reveals much about the process taken.

    Writing can sometimes be exploitative. I like to take a few steps of remove in order to respect the privacy of the subject. If readers make the link, they have engaged with the poem.

    My obsession with time informs my poetry so completely it is hard for me to summarize it. We want time to pass, for new things to happen to us, we want to hold on to certain moments, we don't want our lives to end.

    I have been told my poems unfold in such a way that it is not at all obvious from the outset where they are going or how they will end.

    You can never step into the same book twice, because you are different each time you read it.

    I became intrigued with colour theory. The absurd pronouncements of the Colour Institute, a group that decides what colours are hot each year or season, amused me.

    How does any place influence one's poetry Sometimes I joke that Hypothesis is about an Alberta boy's struggle to have French boyfriends.

    We work on extra points and field goals every day, every day. To have that let us down is very tough.

    In the same way that good sex involves some kind of emotional connection between lovers, readers have to become engaged emotionally.

    Poets can't resist the dramatic pull of their lives and so inevitably write autobiographical verse.

    Reading should be a repeat performance.

    Poets have to be sensitive to their audience, but it does not mean that they censor themselves. I realise my audience is diverse. Some will read with empathy and curiosity while others will take offense.

    I consider a poem to be a kind of experiment where a number of elements are brought together under test conditions to see how they will interact to create meaning or relevance.

    I have become intrigued with the combining of seemingly unrelated ideas or images, or the drawing upon the many, sometimes dissimilar, meanings a word might have.

    With this competition the patient ultimately wins out,

    Sometimes poetry is inspired by the conversation entered into by reading other poems.

    The experiment of the poem is mostly intuitive. I write the first draft, pulling in the various elements that interest me, in the hope that their being combined will lead to some kind of insight.

    Who is the ideal reader? God only knows.

    I have been told by a member of the board of one of Canada's most prominent literary magazines that a submission of mine once caused a great deal of controversy.

    Kids who are encountering that first difficulty with any kind of academic or life event have to re-imagine who they are. When the conclusion is that you're stupid, which is what most kids conclude, I think that has long-lasting, pervasive effects.


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    William Butler Yeats - Maya Angelou - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - Homer - Sylvia Plath - Rainer Maria Rilke - Ovid - Jorge Luis Borges - Euripides - Elizabeth Bishop


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