Vachel Lindsay

"Most of the good poetry, as I have said, has appeared in pamphlet form before the poet was known to the public. It is utterly impossible to make an income from verse, and one must win his worldly stan…"

"Most years I owe no money and I have no money. Every university pays my way to the next town. That’s about all. No poet has ever made any money out of having his poetry published, and no poet ever wil…"

"I am still making my living reciting my verses for crowds who refuse to buy my books. I must do this, as all American rhymers must, however sick I may be of the sound of my own voice."

"I have sung my songs to my own tunes for most of the English departments of the state universities of the forty-eight states of the nation, and the English departments of other universities and colleg…"

"I will not be a slave to my yesterday. I am creator, not a parrot."

"I think that my first poetic impulse is for music; second a definite conception with the ring of the universe..."

"Whenever I begin to write a poem or draw a picture I am, in imagination, if not in reality, back in my room where I began to draw pen-and-ink pictures and write verses in my seventeenth year. Both win…"

"Profile of Vachel Lindsay from "I Hear America Singing" , hosted by Thomas Hampson"