Samuel Taylor Coleridge

I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose,—words in their best order; poetry,—the best words in their best order.

A poem by John Ashbery

THIS ROOM

The room I entered was a dream of this room.
Surely all those feet on the sofa were mine.
The oval portrait
of a dog was me at an early age.
Something shimmers, something is hushed up.
We had macaroni for lunch every day
except Sunday, when a small quail was induced
to be served to us.
Why do I tell you these things?
You are not even here.

Ted Hughes

'Eliot says that the best thing a poet can do is read aloud poetry as much as he can. This should be sound. Silent reading only employs those parts of the brain that are used in vision. Not all the brain. This means that a silent reader's literary sense becomes detached from the motor parts and the audio parts of the brain which are used when reading aloud - tongue and ear. This means that only one third of the mental components are present in their writing or in their understanding of reading - one third emotional charge...' (letter to Sylvia Plath 1956)