51 Quotes by Galway Kinnell

There are two versions to every poem – the crying version and the straight version.

Prose is walking; poetry is flying.

Perhaps poetry will be the canary in the mine-shaft warning us of what’s to come.

The secret title of every good poem might be ‘Tenderness.

I start off but I don’t know where I’m going; I try this avenue and that avenue, that turns out to be a dead end, this is a dead end, and so on. The search takes a long time and I have to back-track often.

That's the way it is with poetry: When it is incomprehensible it seems profound, and when you understand it, it is only ridiculous.