Peter Davison Quotes

Every so often I find some poems that are too good for the readers of The Atlantic because they are a little too involved with the nature of poetry, as such.

I like poems that are little games.

But there is some way in which poets believe that and this is dangerous, too believe that their calling gives them a certain freedom. A certain freedom to live in a free way.

In order to understand what they need to understand, in order to write what they write, they have to be free. And yet, they aren't ever free. They are not free because they are not free of the constrictions their art puts on them.

People are talking about the Internet as though it is going to change the world. It's not going to change the world. It's not going to change the way we think, and it's not going to change the way we feel.

The reason one writes poems is so that your poem will be remembered.

In my youth, I found that I was quite often inspired and pushed forward by what I read.

But for me, being an editor I've been an editor of all kinds of books being an editor of poetry has been the way in which I could give a crucial part of my time to what I love most.

The problem, for me, with the writing programs is that they produce a terrible uniformity of product.

Poetry is composing for the breath.

If poets were realistic, they wouldn't be poets.

For instance, it's a little better now than it was two or three years ago, but something like 70% of the poems I receive seem to be written in the present indicative.

There are so many things that poetry is about, one of which is memory.

Dealing with poetry is a daunting task, simply because the reason one does it as an editor at all is because one is constantly coming to terms with one's own understanding of how to understand the world.

If I were brave enough to say so, I'd like to think that I had written some poems that people are not going to forget.

But poetry is my life. Poetry is what matters to me.

I like poems that are complex.