Campbell McGrath Quotes

#1. war, the human antithesis of art

Campbell McGrath

#2. I tend to write poetry that is rich in data of various sorts. The lyric poem isn't perfectly suited to accommodating such data, so I've had to find new ways to say everything that I want to say.

Campbell McGrath

#3. Poetry resonates differently in each culture; it doesn't in America.

Campbell McGrath

#4. How strange that they arrive at all, nights on planet earth.

Campbell McGrath

#5. The culture stays alive, but certain parts of it die or fail, and that's very interesting to me.

Campbell McGrath

#6. Traditionally poetry is written in lines. But the prose poem is the kind of poem that isn't written in lines. It is lyrical prose that uses the tricks of poetry, such as dense imagery. This is a big topic of debate in poetry land. There's no perfect definition.

Campbell McGrath

#7. People say modernism killed poetry for them: it doesn't rhyme, it doesn't touch a popular musical oral tradition. Years ago, you memorized and read poetry; it was one of the things you were forced to learn. Now it has tiny role in school.

Campbell McGrath

#8. I like each of my books to be different. Once I've done something I like to move on and push myself to learn new things and expand the limits of poetic form.

Campbell McGrath

#9. Dawn

5am: the frogs
ask what is it, what is it?
It is what it is.

Campbell McGrath

#10. Many other cultures value poetry more than we do. In Ireland, poetry is a top cultural pursuit, the art to end all arts.

Campbell McGrath

#11. People who publish poetry today do it from a sense that poetry needs to be published, not because they think they are going to make money.

Campbell McGrath