25 Quotes by James Schuyler

One tends to write beyond what's needed

It seems to me that readers sometimes make the genesis of a poem more mysterious than it is (by that I perhaps mean, think of it as something outside their own experience)

In the past I have declined to comment on my own work: because, it seems to me, a poem is what it is; because a poem is itself a definition, and to try to redefine it is to be apt to falsify it; and because the author is the person least able to consider his work objectively

The aim of the poet, or other artist, is first to make something; and it's impossible to make something out of words and not communicate

Snow falling softly on lashes of eyes you love, and a cold cheek growing warm next to your own in hushed dark familial December.

I wish i could press snowflakes in a book like flowers.

Looking at the sky last night and the moon in the first fresh dark, just a few stars, bright with their cold flares, I had a little crumpled thought, ‘Oh well, the moon. It’s just another place like California.’ One’s imagination drags its feet as we are inexorably hauled into the future.

In the past I have declined to comment on my own work: because, it seems to me, a poem is what it is; because a poem is itself a definition, and to try to redefine it is to be apt to falsify it; and because the author is the person least able to consider his work objectively.

It is always pleasant to learn that someone takes an interest in a work which one enjoyed writing.