Peter Davison Poets Quotations

If poets were realistic, they wouldn't be poets.

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.

The trouble with the performance poets is that they don't seem to have read anything. So there is not a real sense of the poetic tradition in their work.

And I watch my friends, most of whom are in academic life because most poets have to be in academic life, there aren't so many other ways to survive.