The Poet's Companion Quotes

“Good writing works from a simple premise: your experience is not yours alone, but in some sense a metaphor for everyone's.”
― Dorianne Laux, The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry

“We aren't suggesting that mental instability or unhappiness makes one a better poet, or a poet at all; and contrary to the romantic notion of the artist suffering for his or her work, we think these writers achieved brilliance in spite of their suffering, not because of it.”
― Dorianne Laux, The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry

“Who you are contributes to your poetry in a number of important ways, but you shouldn't identify with your poems so closely that when they are cut, you're the one that bleeds.”
― Dorianne Laux, The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry

“Writing and reading are the only ways to find your voice. It won't magically burst forth in your poems the next time you sit down to write, or the next; but little by little, as you become aware of more choices and begin to make them -- consciously and unconsciously -- your style will develop.”
― Dorianne Laux, The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry

“Poetry is an intimate act. It's about bringing forth something that's inside you--whether it is a memory, a philosophical idea, a deep love for another person or for the world, or an apprehension of the spiritual. It's about making something, in language, which can be transmitted to others--not as information, or polemic, but as irreducible art.”
― Dorianne Laux, The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry

“A poem is like a child; at some point we have to let it go and trust that it will make its own way in the world.”
― Dorianne Laux, The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry

“Every good poem asks a question, and every good poet asks every question.”
― Dorianne Laux, The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry

“Robert Frost said, “No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.”
― Kim Addonizio, The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry

“To write without any awareness of a tradition you are trying to become a part of would be self-defeating. Every artist alive responds to the history of his or her art—borrowing, stealing, rebelling against, and building on what other artists have done.”
― Dorianne Laux, The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry

“You are not your poetry. Your self-esteem shouldn't depend on whether you publish, or whether some editor or writer you admire thinks you're any good.”
― Dorianne Laux, The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry

“Poetry is an intimate act. It’s about bringing forth something that’s inside you—whether it is a memory, a philosophical idea, a deep love for another person or for the world, or an apprehension of the spiritual. It’s about making something, in language, which can be transmitted to others—not as information, or polemic, but as irreducible art.”
― Kim Addonizio, The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry

“There's a great feeling of relief and catharsis when you manage to get something that's been buried or hidden out onto the page. And such a process, whether or not it eventually results in a poem, helps to integrate that part of the self.”
― Kim Addonizio, The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry

“If your workshop praises a poem, don’t think everyone is too nice to tell you how terrible it really is. (If it is that kind of workshop, you should get out of it as soon as possible—honest feedback is the sign that people respect your writing and take it seriously.)”
― Kim Addonizio, The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry

“Louise Glück’s Ararat dissects family relationships in starkly beautiful poems.”
― Kim Addonizio, The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry

“Poetry is a reflection of our lives and our imaginations, so it would seem that some of our best and most important poetry would be on this subject.”
― Kim Addonizio, The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry

“On whatever level you are presently concerned with death (and we assume you are; after all, death is concerned with you), you should feel free to write about it.”
― Kim Addonizio, The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry

“The trick is to find out what we know, challenge what we know, own what we know, and then give it away in language: I love my brother, I hate winter, I always lose my keys.”
― Kim Addonizio, The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry

“Images are not quite ideas, they are stiller than that, with less implications outside themselves. And they are not myth, they do not have that explanatory power; they are nearer to pure story. Nor are they always metaphors; they do not say this is that, they say this is.”
― Kim Addonizio, The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry

“But don’t wait for something to happen before you begin to write; pay attention to the world around you, right now.”
― Kim Addonizio, The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry