Robert Graves Quotes about Poetry

There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money, either.

There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money, either.

Money, Writing, Poetry

Robert Graves, Frank L. Kersnowski (1989). “Conversations with Robert Graves”, p.71, Univ. Press of Mississippi

I don't really feel my poems are mine at all. I didn't create them out of nothing. I owe them to my relations with other people.

Robert Graves

People, Poetry, Relation

Abstract reason, formerly the servant of practical human reasons, has everywhere become its master, and denies poetry any excuse for existence. Though philosophers like to define poetry as irrational fancy, for us it is practical, humorous, reasonable way of being ourselves. Of never acquiescing in a fraud; of never accepting the secondary-rate in poetry, painting, music, love, friends. Of safeguarding our poetic institutions against the encroachments of mechanized, insensate, inhumane, abstract rationality.

Robert Graves

Humorous, Poetry, Fancy

"The Crane Bag". Book by Robert Graves. "The Case for Xanthippe", 1969.

Though philosophers like to define poetry as irrational fancy, for us it is practical, humorous, reasonable way of being ourselves.

Robert Graves

Humorous, Poetry, Fancy

Robert Graves, Patrick J. Quinn (2000). “Some speculations on literature, history, and religion”, Carcanet Press Ltd.

Nine-tenths of English poetic literature is the result either of vulgar careerism or of a poet trying to keep his hand in. Most poets are dead by their late twenties.

Robert Graves

Hands, Poetry, Trying

"Ten key things about... poetry" by Dorota Nosowicz, www.theguardian.com. October 1, 2000.

I believe that every English poet should read the English classics, master the rules of grammar before he attempts to bend or break them, travel abroad, experience the horrors of sordid passion, and - if he is lucky enough - know the love of an honest woman.

Robert Graves

Believe, Passion, Poetry

Lecture at Oxford. Time, December 15, 1961.