Peter Davison Quotations

Dealing with poetry is a daunting task, simply because the reason one does it as an editor at all is because one is constantly coming to terms with one's own understanding of how to understand the world.

In order to understand what they need to understand, in order to write what they write, they have to be free. And yet, they aren't ever free. They are not free because they are not free of the constrictions their art puts on them.

Every so often I find some poems that are too good for the readers of The Atlantic because they are a little too involved with the nature of poetry, as such.

But there is some way in which poets believe that and this is dangerous, too believe that their calling gives them a certain freedom. A certain freedom to live in a free way.

But for me, being an editor I've been an editor of all kinds of books being an editor of poetry has been the way in which I could give a crucial part of my time to what I love most.

The problem, for me, with the writing programs is that they produce a terrible uniformity of product.

Poetry should be able to reach everybody, and it should be able to appeal to all levels of understanding.

It is a way we reassess our past. We can do that in poetry in ways we can't do in prose.

In my youth, I found that I was quite often inspired and pushed forward by what I read.

I just think that some version of the past in our culture is going to rise up and become dominant.