I've had trouble with criticism, I guess. It's hard to know what role criticism plays in either encouraging poets or in getting other people to read them.
quote by Kenneth Koch

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Good Poets and Bad Poets
Some poets get awards and think they are good poets.
Some poets never get awards and think they are bad poets.
Some poets think they are good poets only in their own mind
Some poets think they are bad poets in somebody's else mind.
Some poets think they are good poets in somebody else mind.
Some poets think others think they are good poets but they don't in their hearts.
Some poets think they are good poets in their hearts but not in anyone else's mind.
All are insecure, except those who get security from the opinions of others and that, alas, doesn't last and isn't real.
Some poets have left the entire scene and live only in their mind.
Some poets take criticism and don't mind.
Some poets avoid criticism and do mind.
Some poets write poetry to get love.
Some poets love to write poetry.
Some poets are ahead of their time, in their mind
Some poets spend a lifetime feeling like failures in their mind
Some poets live only after they die.
Some poets have much to say but can't articulate
Some poets retreat, believing others don't understand
So which one of these am I?
I guess I am all of these and none of these
and no matter what my description
I intend to keep doing what I do:
Write. Right
poem by Lonnie Hicks

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If government, or those in positions of power and authority, can silence criticism by the argument that such criticism might be misunderstood somewhere, there is an end to all criticism, and perhaps an end to our kind of political system. For men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies is dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive.
quote by Henry Steele Commager

Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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On the Critical Attitude
The critical attitude
Strikes many people as unfruitful
That is because they find the state
Impervious to their criticism
But what in this case is an unfruitful attitude
Is merely a feeble attitude. Give criticism arms
And states can be demolished by it.
Canalising a river
Grafting a fruit tree
Educating a person
Transforming a state
These are instances of fruitful criticism
And at the same time instances of art.
poem by Bertolt Brecht

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I do see value in music criticism. Most of the criticism I have received over the years has been very good.
quote by Van Morrison

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Many French directors, having now realised there was no more real criticism, that the standards of the past have gone, are very offended about the quality of film criticism.
quote by Wim Wenders

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Learn to control ego. Humans hold their dogmas and biases too tightly, and we only think that our opponents are dogmatic! But we all need criticism. Criticism is the only known antidote to error.
quote by David Brin

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I would guess that any criticism about Wal-Mart could have some element of truth with 1,500,000 people.
We always expect tremendous criticism. It is my role to be the lightning rod ... to attract the attacks against the organization for our work, and that is a difficult role. On the other hand, I get undue credit.
quote by Julian Assange

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Poetry; a criticism of life under the conditions fixed for such a criticism by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty.
quote by Matthew Arnold

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Men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies is dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive.
quote by Henry Steele Commager

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As a piece of literacy criticism, Freud's best writing is about Dostoyevsky. It's a kind of displaced literacy criticism.
quote by Dennis Potter

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Neither praise nor blame is the object of true criticism. Justly to discriminate, firmly to establish, wisely to proscribe, and honestly to award - these are the true aims and duties of criticism.
I have been frequently accused of deliberately twisting subject matter to my point of view. Above all, I know that life for a photographer cannot be a matter of indifference. Opinion often consists of a kind of criticism. But criticism can come out of love.
quote by Robert Frank

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Neither praise or blame is the object of true criticism. Justly to discriminate, firmly to establish, wisely to prescribe, and honestly to award. These are the true aims and duties of criticism.
quote by William Gilmore Simms

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Gods Favoured Me
Heat – no air-con today – realising France’s dream of
saving their coastline due to the Greenhouse effect,
went for a lunch-break stroll singing all the way,
refusing to contemplate office problems
The gods favoured me on my first day, email connection
restored, now I am so privileged to read criticism of the
work I did before leaving on holiday, I am still girdling
my loins with positive thoughts
Before tackling heartbreaking rejection of words I wrote,
New Year’s Resolution: never face today what can be
deferred to tomorrow, stop and smell the roses, I can
read nasty remarks any time
The mere fact of having an office in which to be miserable
is such a source of joy and delight, not to be spoilt with
feelings of inadequacy; why cry about the humours of
those in charge trying to convince me I am
A disaster because I cannot write the words they dictate,
cannot march to the tune they prescribe, kept in my place
by them changing their translation rules every day - I am
thankful that I can still think and feel after years
As a civil servant, I should have turned into a cyborg ages
ago, yet the incessant stream of criticism proves I am still
the same human I was at the beginning – people like me
cannot be changed into robots
No matter how much criticism is directed our way, olé!
poem by Margaret Alice Second

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People say you should read your criticism because it will make you a better person but it doesn't. It just makes you a sad bitter old showbiz nightmare.
Poets should ignore most criticism and get on with making poetry.
quote by Anne Stevenson

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All good criticism should be judged the way art is. You shouldn't read it the way you read history or science.
quote by Leslie Fiedler

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You can't operate a company by fear, because the way to eliminate fear is to avoid criticism. And the way to avoid criticism is to do nothing.
quote by Steve Ross

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The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.
quote by Norman Vincent Peale

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