40 Quotes by Peter Davison

Poetry was invented as an mnemonic device to enable people to remember their prayers.

The reason one writes poems is so that your poem will be remembered.

The relation between a poet and audience is really insignificant. What matters is the poet is hearing something that he is broadcasting. And whether there is anybody with a receiver isn't the reason he does it. He hopes there is somebody receiving it.

It is very difficult for people to come in contact with their own emotions and their own sensibilities.

For instance, it's a little better now than it was two or three years ago, but something like 70% of the poems I receive seem to be written in the present indicative.

If I were brave enough to say so, I'd like to think that I had written some poems that people are not going to forget.

I would like to be proud of having written some poems that will be remembered, but I will never know whether I will have any reason to be proud of that.

I think poetry has lost an awful lot of its muscle because nobody knows any. Nobody has to memorize poetry.

If poets were realistic, they wouldn't be poets.