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Randall Jarrell on Poetry

1914–1965 United States

← All quotes by Randall Jarrell

9 quotes

Human life without some form of poetry is not human life but animal existence.

Poetry and the Age (1953)

The real war poets are always war poets, peace or any time.

Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964 (1980)

As Blake said, there is no competition between true poets.

Poetry and the Age (1953)

I think that one possible definition of our modern culture is that it is one in which nine-tenths of our intellectuals can't read any poetry.

Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Times (1993)

Many poets...write as if they had been decerebrated, and not simply lobotomized, as a cure for their melancholia.

Poetry and the Age (1953)

If we were in the habit of reading poets their obscurity would not matter; and, once we are out of the habit, their clarity does not help.

Poetry and the Age (1953)

...just as great men are great disasters, overwhelmingly good poets are overwhelmingly bad influences.

The Third Book of Criticism (1969)

...modern poetry is necessarily obscure; if the reader can’t get it, let him eat Browning...

The Third Book of Criticism (1969)

...whether they write poems or don’t write poems, poets are best.

Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964 (1980)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Randall Jarrell (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.