... imaginary gardens with real toads in them ...... if you demand on one hand, the raw material of poetry inall its rawness andthat which is on the other handgenuine, then you are interested in poetry.

Marianne Moore
About This Quote

... imaginary gardens with real toads in them. When we use words like “imaginary,” “real,” “raw,” or “genuine,” we are trying to make poetry seem like something that it is not. Poets want to make us think that poetry comes from the earth and can be found everywhere. Poetry is not found in all of the world's languages and it is often hard to tell what a poem means unless it has been translated.

Source: Complete Poems

Some Similar Quotes
  1. Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake. - Wallace Stevens
  2. To be great, be whole; Exclude nothing, exaggerate nothing that is not you. Be whole in everything. Put all you are Into the smallest thing you do. So, in each lake, the moon shines with splendor Because it blooms up above. - Fernando Pessoa
  3. The poet's job is to put into words those feelings we all have that are so deep, so important, and yet so difficult to name, to tell the truth in such a beautiful way, that people cannot live without it. - Jane Kenyon
  4. Truth is a friendthat asks for loyaltyand acceptancethen it enters our heartsdissolving the boundariesfreeing us from lonliness - Nirmala
  5. Trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky, We fell them down and turn them into paper, That we may record our emptiness. - Kahlil Gibran
More Quotes By Marianne Moore
  1. ... imaginary gardens with real toads in them ...... if you demand on one hand, the raw material of poetry inall its rawness andthat which is on the other handgenuine, then you are interested in poetry.
  2. Poetry...... a place for the genuine, Hands that can grasp, eyesthat can dilate, hair that can rise
  3. Any writer overwhelmingly honest about pleasing himself is almost sure to please others.
  4. Wolf's wool is the best wool, but it cannot be sheared, because the wolf will not comply. With knowledge as with wolves' surliness, the student studies voluntarily, refusing to be less than individual. He "gives his opinion and then rests upon it"; he renders service...
  5. They fought the enemy, we fight fat living and self-pity. Shine, o shine, unfalsifying sun, on this sick scene.
Related Topics