"Inspiration comes within a framework. A poem that gets out of hand is not a poem."

John Hollander Literature See all quotes by John Hollander →

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“English Prosody has tended to be a subject for cranks.”

“Contrastive stress is very important in English, as poems are full of invisible italicised contrasts of this kind.”

“You can teach the writing of verse..like prose..an instrument..and the recognition of true poetry. The rest, writers must teach themselves.”

“Poetic form is an abstraction from. or residue of musical form. The ghost of oral poetry never vanishes therefrom.All poetry was originally oral.”

“The large unphilosophical, 'poetic' or 'religious' questions are elicited from their precise and technical microcosms.”

“I usually seem to finish a poem when I write it down. I may have been carrying the notion around in my head.”

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