James Tate famous quotes

Poetry is everywhere; it just needs editing.
-- James Tate

#Editing #Poetry #Needs

The challenge is always to find the ultimate in the ordinary horseshit.
-- James Tate

#Challenges #Ordinary #Ultimate

In You Are Not Dead Wendy Xu breaks all the old rules that have never done us any favors anyway. She writes beautifully, noticing who we are, and letting us see ourselves with a little more humanity, a little more humor, a little more humility. I'm happy to have read this book.
-- James Tate

#Book #Writing #Humility

William Waltz will take me through 'the buzz and clamor in a forest of hearts.' Adventures in the Lost Interiors of America is an adventure, I will go on this adventure with Waltz as a skillful, faithful, compass-true guide. I love this book.
-- James Tate

#Book #Heart #Adventure

Something should always change in a poem. The persona should learn something.
-- James Tate

#Should #Persona

Bad spellers of the world untie!

Objectivity can only be the author's and therefore subjective, even if he is editing a newsreel.

Poets are born, not paid.

A poet cannot be a Party member ... without paying the price.

Pretty conceptions, fine metaphors, glittering expressions, and something of a neat cast of verse are properly the dress, gems, or loose ornaments of poetry.

We need a safe place, a reserve of truth, a place where words kindle ideas and set ideas sparking off in others, a word sanctuary. Poetry is this gathering place of words.

Readjusting is a painful process, but most of us need it at one time or another.

Birth is a shadow. Courage, self-sustained, outlords succession's phlegm, and needs no ancestors.

Innovation is hard because solving problems people didn't know they had & building something no one needs look identical at first.

You don't need vision to be a visionary.