"What matters in poetry is form, how words work together, the sounds and silences their combinations make. The ordered effects they produce on the attentive hearer."

Michael Schmidt (poet)Literature See all quotes by Michael Schmidt (poet) →

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“Poetry is a language with a shape”

“In poetry much of the sense and most of the pleasure resides in the sounds the poem make.”

“We read with our ears”

“Poetry is a collaborative art, and yet—as it is being created—the most solitary and 'individual' of activities.”

“The reader does not need a technical vocabulary to read poetry, only a voice in the head or out loud which can deliver the sounds.”

“Poetry is a process, a form of discovery, which if it serves a cause, transcends it.”

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