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Robert Frost on Poetry

1874–1963 United States

← All quotes by Robert Frost

5 quotes

Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.

I could define poetry this way: it is that which is lost out of both prose and verse in translation.

Conversations on the Craft of Poetry (1959)

The person who spends his time criticizing the play around him will never write poetry. He will write criticism.

The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight and ends in wisdom.

The Figure a Poem Makes (1939)

A poem...begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. It is a reaching-out toward expression; an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where an emotion finds the thought and the thought finds the words.

Attribution

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