When I began writing, I didn't read any other children's poets... I didn't want to be influenced until I'd found my own voice. Now I read them all.
quote by Jack Prelutsky
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Related quotes
My birthday was different this year
As I was rummaging through
the file boxes my wife had left for me
in the garage
I found a yellow legal pad
scribbled with hand written poems
I had written one night
in a almost crowded coffeehouse
waiting for a poet friend from Chicago
to come up north to read
The poems talked about
how I waited and waited
before too long
several anxious poets
ran up to the microphone
not afraid to trip over themselves
share their delicate poems
about romance and almost romance
detailing having a job they don't like
and it seemed to me
they were also not liking much else about their lives
besides their job they didn't like
My Chicago artist friend as usual
was more then an hour late
which isn't bad considering Chicago
is almost three hours away
so most other places
damn, she would have been early
When I read the poem
I wrote about being at a reading
I didn't want to be at
I realized I was spending my birthday
by myself in a coffeehouse
writing poems
not making much eye contact
with people I didn't even like
although one of the poets
I think Francine is her name
came up to me during a break and said 'hi'
but she didn't remember my name
or knew it was my birthday
and a couple of days after my anniversary
or that I was getting a divorce
that poem I read
was a good sign of things to come
because this year
on my birthday
I woke up with a new friend in my bed
multiple orgasms for her to share
before having a nice breakfast together
of eggs, sausage, hash browns and italian toast
cooked on the George Foreman grill
and things didn't look or feel
the same again
poem by Oscar Mireles
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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I love painting and music, of course. I don't know nearly as much about them as I know about poetry. I've certainly been influenced by fiction. I was overwhelmed by War and Peace when I read it, and I didn't read it until I was in my late 20s.
quote by Kenneth Koch
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I loved to read and to write, but then something happened. As I made my way through school, I kept getting handed books to read that didn't excite me and didn't even remotely connect to the realities of my life.
quote by R.A. Salvatore
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Faint Of Heart
I wish you could have read
The Letters that I didn’t write
Would’ve liked for you to have heard
Words I didn’t say
I wish you could have felt the touch
Of hands that didn’t reach out at night
Would’ve liked to know
What you didn’t feel…
When you didn’t hear the words…
Words I didn’t say…words I couldn’t write
poem by David Whalen
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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A Poet
He — or was it she?
was a child who said little
but walked, endlessly, just looking
or stood still for minutes, hours,
and became what they looked at
was from a large family
but still people said, you’re an only child aren’t you
was it seems very happy in themself
but no-one asked, so never said
kept themself to themself, which annoyed
other children, who bullied them
and then were even more annoyed
when they didn’t play the victim
failed examinations and yet
was always wrapt up in a book
occasionally did things like cutting themselves
and was told off but never questioned usefully
wrote poems secretly but was unconcerned
whether people read them or not
was good to be with as long as you
didn’t expect anything of them
was secretly loved by some
who never liked to say so
because what they loved somehow
didn’t have a name
years later, some of them read the poems
and knew what they had loved
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Didnt Know
Didn't know what you had
Until you lost it
Didn't know what you own
Until you got it
Didn't know of your sins
Until you fought it.
Didn't know what you needed
Until you sought it.
Didn't know your lies
Until someone spoke them
Didn't know of the truth
Until someone wrote them
Didn't remembered your dreams
Until someone awoke them
Didn't know they died
Until someone chocked them.
Didn't know you had guilt
Until you cried
Didn't know you felt sadness
Until you tried to hide
Didn't know you felt shame
Until you lied
Didn't know you believed in GOD
Until you asked him why.
Didn't know you felt sorrow
Until you shed a tear
Didn't know that you were scared
Until I saw your fear
Didn't know that you hated
Until you were near
Didn't know that you were unhappy
Until you looked in a mirror.
Didn't know who you truly were
Until your ways you sewed
Didn't know that you were evil
Until the truth was showed
Didn't know you did this before
Until I saw all of your woe
Didn't know who you really were
Though I wished then I did know.
Randy L. McClave
poem by Randy McClave
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I Read and Reread/ The Poets I Love
I READ AND REREAD/ THE POETS I LOVE
I read and reread
The poets I love-
I seek new poets
To love poetry more with-
I write my own small poems
And read them again occasionally-
Sometimes I find in them lines
I want to return to
And remember.
If only I could be such a stranger to myself
That I in reading a poem of my own
Would know it belongs to Literature.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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A New Submission
Congratulations.
I see you have added a new submission.
'Yes I did.
And what did you think of it? '
Me?
I really didn't read it.
I rarely read any of them,
As much as I count them.
Keep up the good work.
'Uh...
Thank you? '
No problem at all.
'Well,
One never knows.
Maybe one day the contents,
Of my submissions...
Will acturally be read,
To broaden one's perspective.
And the counting of them by number,
Will become less of a validation...
That one knows 'something' about math.'
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Breathe
Two men
They started walking
Started talking bout better days
One says to the other
We do it all again
Seems I knew I would
And now I found it
Found I got it
I didn't want this
Somebody help me see
Now I feel it
Feel like I've been there
I didn't need this
Somebody help me breathe
Here we are again
Just face to facing
Each other another day
Who wins
Well who cares
It always ends up the same
Seems I knew I would
And now I found it
Found I got it
I didn't want this
Somebody help me see
And now I feel it
Feel that I've been there
I didn't need this
Would Somebody help me stand
And now I've told them
Already warned them
I didn't want this
Somebody help me breathe
If I was them
Then I wanna be
What I see
If I could drag my life in a moment
Wanna know do you want me to go
Gonna keep it all from ending
Never stop myself from pretending
That you always knew that I never could
All I ever really wanted was to be the same
Equal treatment never ever comes
and there they go again
All I ever really wanted was to be like you
So perfect
So worthless
If i could take it all back think again
I would
And now I found it
Found I got it
I didn't want this
Somebody help me see
Now I feel it
Feel that I've been there
I didn't need this
Somebody help me stand
And now I've told them
I didn't want this
I didn't need this
Would somebody help me breathe
Would somebody help me breathe
Would somebody help me?
song performed by by Nickelback from The State
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Give You What You Want
Why didn't I call, why didn't I fall
Why didn't I hang my heart on your wall
Why didn't I know, why didn't I show
All my feelings from the word go
So if you love me, don't leave me
I promise that you'll never lack
'Cause this man's on his knees,
begging' please
Baby turn your back, yeah
I'll give you what you want
I'll do anything to make you mine
If you give me what I want
I will be yours to the end of time
Girl you won't be sorry
And you won't regret it
There's no need to worry, only if you let it
Why didn't I say, the thing that I read
Why didn't I see the signs in my head
Why didn't I speak, to you last week
When I saw you walking down my street
So if you love me, don't leave me
Alone here to die on this track
Girl rescue me, let's get this train
And we'll never look back
[Chorus]
Girl you won't be sorry
And you won't regret it
There's no need to worry, only if you let it
Oh, wow I can't let go
Oh, wow, I swear I'll take it slow
[Chorus (repeat)]
song performed by by Ronan Keating
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A Curious Secret
When I said that I read
Vita Sackville-West
He didn't get it
When I said I had a yen
To visit Llangollen
and bask in the past
of those infamous ladies
He still didn't get it
When I wrote I was smote
in a Sapphic type verse
He just didn't get it
I even told him of my passion
for Balthus' 'Guitar Lesson'
yet he still didn't get it!
So while we watched
'Gazon Maudit'
and he sat there
obliviously
I asked him to join us
Now he gets it!
© Justine Tennant 2004
poem by Justine Tennant
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Isolation Rocks
to read poets
their poems
is time choice
actually poet
would write
more superior
poems
if educated read
other poets?
interacted more
nothing happens
in still isolation?
isolation rocks
soul voice would
become more
mainstream
golden voice
is orchestra
soloist singers
must solo sing
orchestra backed?
therefore
give me
the crags
rivers
waterfalls
wilderness
as I sing
their alone
only echoes
are
distant
heard
poem by Terence George Craddock
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Even An Old Man Does Not Wish To Read
EVEN AN OLD MAN DOES NOT WISH TO READ
Even an Old Man does not wish to read
An Old Man’s Poetry-
What is the use of bad health litanies
And endless complaints of disappointments?
And wonderings about Waste and Loss
And about Time never to return
And all one has erred in?
An Old Man longs for Beginning again.
An Old man wants what he cannot have
And wishes to be what he cannot be-
And write as if there were new worlds waiting to be found within himself
And great adventures and explorations in writing and writing and writing
An old man longs for freshness deep down things
And dry dry dry is all
Theory
And Grey his life.
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Yeah, I read Judy Blume. My mother didn't like that, but I read it anyhow.
quote by Alison Bechdel
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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As a kid, I didn't read a great deal of fiction, and I've forgotten most of what I did read.
quote by Mark Haddon
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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You know it has to do with Kelley and drugs, and me... and there's like, what is it? I didn't read it. That's my thing. That's what I do, I don't read things if I don't think they're going to be good. I don't even look at the pictures.
To Read And Read Again
TO READ AND READ AGAIN
To read and to read again
And to be left empty
By the abundance of words
Whose meanings multiplication
Erases all sense
Of their coherence
And our understanding.
To read and read again
As if in this pretence of learning
Salvation will come
To read and read again
And be forever dumb.
.
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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I liked to read but, being a dancer, I didn't have a lot of time to read.
quote by Suzanne Farrell
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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We didn't have television in those days, and many people didn't even have radios. My mother would read aloud to my father and me in the evening.
quote by Beverly Cleary
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I Didn't Mean To Turn You
Let you take me out
I knew what you were all about
But when I did
I wasn't tryin' to lead you on
Now you bring me home
And tell me goodnight's
Not enough for you
I'm sorry baby
I didn't mean to turn you on
You read me wrong
I wasn't trying to lead you on
I want a friend
I didn't mean to turn you on
I didn't mean to turn you on
I know you
Expected a one night stand
When I refused
I knew you wouldn't understand
Boy I told you twice
I was only tryin' to be nice
Only tryin' to be nice
Oh
I didn't mean to turn you on
Oh I didn't mean to turn you on
Turn you on
Tell me why should I
Feel guilty cause I won't give
Guilty cause I won't give in
I didn't mean to turn you on
[repeat chorus]
You think that I'm a fool
Cause I wouldn't play by your rules
(I didn't mean to turn you on)
You don't stand a chance
All I want to do is dance with you
(I didn't mean to turn you on)
I told you twice
I was only tryin' to be nice
(I didn't mean to turn you on)
I loved you for a friend
But I guess this is the
End of our relationship
Cause I didn't mean to turn you on
I didn't mean to turn you on
Sorry.
[Repeat]
song performed by by Mariah Carey from Glitter
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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