Adrienne Mayor
Adrienne Mayor

The 'Iliad' covered only two months of the great ten-year war with Troy. At least six other epic poems preceded or continued the events in the 'Iliad', but they survive only as fragments.

Adrienne Rich
Adrienne Rich

The moment of change is the only poem.

Adrienne Rich
Adrienne Rich

'Storm Warnings' is a poem about powerlessness - about a force so much greater than our human powers that while it can be measured and even predicted, it is beyond human control. All 'we' can do is create an interior space against the storm, an enclave of self-protection, though the winds of change till penetrate keyholes and 'unsealed apertures.'

Adrienne Rich
Adrienne Rich

A revolutionary poem will not tell you who or when to kill, what and when to burn, or even how to theorize. It reminds you... where and when and how you are living and might live, it is a wick of desire.

Ai Weiwei
Ai Weiwei

Twitter was like a poem. It was rich, real and spontaneous. It really fit my style. In a year and a half, I tweeted 60,000 tweets, over 100,000 words. I spent a minimum eight hours a day on it, sometimes 24 hours.

Al Purdy
Al Purdy

'A collected poems' is either a gravestone or a testimonial to survival.

Alejandra Pizarnik
Alejandra Pizarnik

I redo the body of my poem like someone who tries to cure her own wound.

Alexandra Adornetto
Alexandra Adornetto

Literature has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. I can't think back before a time that I didn't love writing and reading. When I was really young, my mother would read poems to me. I loved Edgar Allan Poe - I am sure I didn't understand it, but I loved it.

Alexandra Adornetto
Alexandra Adornetto

Imagination makes us aware of limitless possibilities. How many of us haven't pondered the concept of infinity or imagined the possibility of time travel? In one of her poems, Emily Bronte likens imagination to a constant companion, but I prefer to think of it as a built-in entertainment system.

Alfonso A. Ossorio
Alfonso A. Ossorio

The idea is to take the most ordinary things and make them extraordinary, as Gerard Manley Hopkins does in his poems.