not it

Poetry: It’s not what you think it is. As you catch hold of it, it changes. As you define it, it becomes different

innovative v. novel

Is the work innovative, an improvement of the art, or merely novel, different in a way that makes little difference to the art?

alt aesthetic

Not everyone need accept your aesthetic.

different reasons

Philosophers and poets are fond of the aphorism for different reasons.

not on the same page

Two poets were talking about the value of reading, how it informed their work, and probably they were reading entirely different books.

dappled things

The only kind of poetry that is poor is poetry of one kind.

come from afar

To be a poet from another planet.

poetry in its own way

I am perfectly willing to admit that it is not the best or the most poetical form of poetry, and that it is very far indeed from the forms that I myself like best. But one of the cries which a critic should never be tired of uttering, whether in the streets or in the wilderness, is that nothing is bad merely because it is different from another thing which is good, and that in this world there is no equality or fixed standard to which everything must be cut down or stretched out. The best rhetorical poetry of the eighteenth century is not the best poetry, but it is poetry in its own way, exhibiting the glow, the rush, the passion, which strict prose cannot, and which poetry can, give.

—George Saintsbury, “Eighteenth Century Poetry,” A Saintsbury Miscellany (Oxford U. Press, 1947)

barbarian poets

Going back to the Greek meaning of the word ‘barbarian’ (those who speak a language other than Greek), we can see that all poets are ‘barbarians’ because they speak a different language from the main tribe or polis. The difference can range from a matter of dialect or inflection to a speech that is radically different in terms of word sounds, meanings, syntax, and diction.