Authors:

May Swenson Quotes

The best poetry has its roots in the subconscious to a great degree. Youth, naivety, reliance on instinct more than learning and method, a sense of freedom and play, even trust in randomness, is necessary to the making

The best poetry has its roots in the subconscious to a great degree. Youth, naivety, reliance on instinct more than learning and method, a sense of freedom and play, even trust in randomness, is necessary to the making of a poem.

May Swenson
Play, Roots, Degrees
May Swenson, Gardner McFall (1998). “Made with words”, Univ of Michigan Pr

Take earth for your own large room and the floor of earth carpeted with sunlight and hung round with silver wind for your dancing place.

May Swenson
Wind, Dancing, Earth
May Swenson (2013). “May Swenson: Collected Poems: (Library of America #239)”, p.675, Library of America

Body my house my horse my hound what will I do when you are fallen

May Swenson
Horse, House, Body
"Question" l. 1 (1954)

Poetry can magnify experience.

May Swenson
Poetry
May Swenson (1971). “More poems to solve”, Atheneum

The summer that I was ten - Can it be there was only one summer that I was ten? It must have been a long one then.

May Swenson
Summer, Long, Has Beens
May Swenson (2013). “May Swenson: Collected Poems: (Library of America #239)”, p.96, Library of America

Love is ... the bite into bread again.

May Swenson
Love Is, Bread, Bites

Bat doesn't hit ball, bat meets it.

May Swenson
Bats, Balls
May Swenson (2013). “May Swenson: Collected Poems: (Library of America #239)”, p.495, Library of America

You May Also Like: