Robert Frost
American poet
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
A poem begins with a lump in the throat, a home-sickness or a love-sickness. It is a reaching-out toward expression; an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where the emotion has found its thought and the thought has found the words.
—Robert Frost, American poet, letter, 1916
Posted on February 29, 2000 at 3:38 PM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
Sometimes I have my doubts of words altogether, and I ask myself what is the place of them. They are worse than nothing unless they do something; unless they amount to deeds, as in ultimatums or battle-cries. They must be flat and final like the show-down in poker, from which there is no appeal. My definition of poetry (if I were forced to give one) would be this: words that become deeds.
—Robert Frost, American poet, Robert Frost: The Man and His Work, 1923
Posted on July 21, 2000 at 9:00 PM
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