A writer expresses himself in words that have been used before because they give his meaning better than he can give it himself, or because they are beautiful or witty, or because he expects them to touch a cord of association in his reader, or because he wishes to show that he is learned and well read. Quotations due to the last motive are invariably ill-advised; the discerning reader detects it and is contemptuous; the undiscerning is perhaps impressed, but even then is at the same time repelled, pretentious quotations being the surest road to tedium.
Henry W. Fowler in A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926)
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Quotation ... A writer expresses himself in words that have been used before because they give his meaning better than he can give it himself, or because they are beautiful or witty, or because he expects them to touch a cord of association in his reader, or because he wishes to show that he is learned and well read. Quotations due to the last motive are invariably ill-advised the discerning reader detects it and is contemptuous the undiscerning is perhaps impressed, but even then is at the same time repelled, pretentious quotations being the surest road to tedium.
quote by Henry W. Fowler
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It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. Bartlett's Familiar Quotations is an admirable work, and I studied it intently. The quotations when engraved upon the memory give you good thoughts. They also make you anxious to read the authors and look for more.
quote by Winston Churchill
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Reader or writer
If you are a reader or a writer.
You should be a positive thinker.
You are more like a scientist observer.
Try to be an exact experimenter.
Nothing is too crazy to put on paper.
If you are a reader or a writer.
The reader is a wonderful dreamer.
The writer is a sincere worker.
Its lovely that both can be each other.
If you are a reader or a writer.
You should never say never.
So don't leave behind a book marker.
Make sure you have a word sharpener.
Nada Mas (only the poem)
Reader, your voice is the poem
you are the words; and
nothing more.
Reader, there is no poetry
unless you speak it.
Reader, there is no sound
you must find what it has to say.
Reader, seek the thought
rising from your soul.
Reader, look all about you, up and down
no one else has come this way.
Reader, there is no other poem
only you among the words of the word; and
nothing more.
poem by Smoky Hoss
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A Point
Words too many, creates an inflation-like balloon; sphere grown too large
where each word gets lost in the volume of words gone awry, orphaned,
where syllabicity becomes too complicatedly and comprehension
escapes the brain and flees into the night of obscurity and sadly
interest waxes and wanes and only pieces of the meaning
remain, distended and jumbled up and in surrealities
which makes one doubt whether the poem makes
sense of not, or if it is I, the reader lacking
the wit or common sense to see what
the writer meant or if there is a code
to all of this that I, the reader just
does not get, and, perhaps a
second read will clarify all
this and the light will
flood in and then
I, reader, will
and poet
reveal
the
point.
poem by Lonnie Hicks
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What The Reader Needs Is Words
What the reader needs is words
So Beautiful
And so Surprising
That they bring Joy and Mystery
A sense of Freshness in all things.
What the Reader needs
The Poet should give
But there are Poets who cannot be
The best Poetry is
Still they live and write
As I do.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Mud Path
Non-eye vision penetrates.
The silent song trembles
I weave a pattern
to resolve the crisis
the escape to white
space was useless.
The ending of sorrow
was a movement on circuit
the center has started vanishing.
Thinking was preventing
the completeness of self.
A single flower is answer of nature.
The echo of pulsating memories.
the landscape is full of quotations.
No one reads. Denials
and evasions want more attention.
A new road enters the body
on the edge of a prayer
infinitely small, a handful of vowels
sailing in my mind,
give powerful eyes to faith.
The abstracted meaning
leaves a sweet taste in mouth.
I lay out a mud path for the reader.
poem by Satish Verma
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The One Who Decides
There is no fight for terrificness,
With votes to split...
To see who sits on thrones.
No panel of judges,
Or audience call-ins...
To pick who is the best of all!
When a writer is alone,
And inspiration begins to creep...
There is no sleeping!
Maybe some weeping!
Perhaps some frustration...
From attempts to produce a creation!
But when a writer is alone,
And a thought becomes complete...
The ultimate winner is you the reader.
The one who decides,
If the message delivered...
Is one to criticize.
Or if the writer wants what's read...
To be taken to depths,
Inside one's head!
There is no fight for terrificness,
With votes to split...
To see who sits on thrones.
No panel of judges,
Or audience call-ins...
To pick who is the best of all!
The one who decides,
If the message delivered...
Is one to criticize.
Or one that makes the shivering inside...
Going below surfaces,
Unexpected and undenied.
That would be 'you' the reader...
The one who decides to take it deeper!
Giving the writer a purpose to keep,
You...
The reader,
Either laughing...
Or weeping!
With creations,
That give you creeps!
BOO! !
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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An Apology To The Reader Who Has Written Me A Message I Have Not Answered
AN APOLOGY TO THE READER WHO HAS WRITTEN A MESSAGE TO ME I HAVE NOT ANSWERED
The real apology is not this poem
It is one by one
Reader by reader
Answering each one
Who has ever written me.
It is reading all the poems of others
I do not want to say
A ‘real no’ or a ‘false yes’ to.
It is opening myself
To perhaps a true friend
To perhaps one whose writing
I see better than my own.
The real apology
Is in opening up to the poems of the many unknown others.
Will I do this
Will I give it the time
When I already am guilty
Of not using my limited time
To correct my past work?
Dear Reader,
I apologize, I do not know.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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The Ballade Of The Average Reader
I try to touch the public taste,
For thus I earn my daily bread.
I try to write what folks will paste
In scrap books after I am dead.
By Public Craving I am led.
(I' sooth, a most despotic leader)
Yet, though I write for Tom and Ned,
I've never seen an average reader.
The Editor is good and chaste,
But says: (Above the public's head;
This is _too_ good; 'twill go to waste.
Write something commonplacer-
Ed.)
Write for the average reader, fed
By pre-digested near-food's feeder,
But though my high ideals have fled,
I've never _seen_ an average reader.
How many lines have been erased!
How many fancies have been shed!
How many failures might be traced
To this-this average-reader dread!
I've seen an average single bed;
I've seen an average garden-weeder;
I've seen an average cotton thread-
I've _never_ seen an average _reader_.
L'ENVOI
Most read of readers, if you've read
The works of any old succeeder,
You know that he, too, must have said:
'I've never seen an Average Reader.'
poem by Franklin P. Adams
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The Poet And The Reader
the poet writes his lines
they are all dead
unless the reader comes
and resurrects them
then the poem becomes alive
and begins to read upon itself
the meaning of its existence
there is a bond between the poet
and the reader
a familiarity comes into play
one says> this is what it is
the other says> i know.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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The taste for quotations (and for the juxtaposition of incongruous quotations) is a Surrealist taste.
quote by Susan Sontag
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Every reader finds himself. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself.
quote by Marcel Proust
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Without books I would not have become a vivacious reader, and if you are not a reader you are not a writer.
quote by Ken Follet
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A thankyou for a comment
What is a poem without a reader?
What is a reader without a heart?
What is a heart without another heart to meet it,
greet it?
What are two hearts without what they share?
What is sharing without sharing everything?
What is everything without poets?
What is a poet without a reader...
How beautiful a circle is.
How still its centre.
poem by Michael Shepherd
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As a writer, you have control of the words you put on the page. But once that manuscript leaves your hand, you give control to the reader. As a director, you are limited by everything: weather, budget, and egos.
quote by Nicholas Meyer
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A writer is, after all, only half his book. The other half is the reader and from the reader the writer learns.
quote by P.L. Travers
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Metaphors
Like the unicorn,
they have to need to be;
to hear our need for them to be.
Like time,
they must creep up on the writer,
on the reader,
invisible
yet with inevitability
which cannot be escaped.
Like thieves,
they must enter unannounced,
take what they must.
Like mice,
they must take up residence
until there is no longer sustenance for them.
Like bailiffs,
they must demand entrance;
be admitted;
take their just exchange.
Like housekeepers,
they must earn their keep
by keeping us in all we ask of them.
Like lovers,
they must prove themselves
part of our lives
until our earthly sentence ends the dream.
Like children,
they must know their place;
then be loved just for themselves
beyond life itself.
Like life:
revealing its boundlessness
in a landscape that stretches out, is limitless.
Writer - reader -
care for a metaphor as for one you love:
as you love yourself;
they are our life-blood: for they tell of what
can only be said quietly, with a touch of hand,
to those whose heart is listening.
poem by Michael Shepherd
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0176 Letter to a Well-known Contemporary Poet
I wanted to write to you about your poems,
that is, about something I couldn't quite put my finger on
so I didn't write in case it sounded inconsequential
and it's silly to write to a poet who handles words so expertly,
inconsequentially..
Inconsequential. That's it. I appreciate that you want to stress
life's inconsequentiality - this happens, that happens, but
we're none the wiser - that's a modern concern, I appreciate,
no neat wrapping life up with a brisk end-rhyme...
but how can I put this tactfully, inconsequentiality
or is it tangentiality
can seem to the reader eager to extract meaning
that is, the poet's meaning, as near as can be...
inconsequentiality can seem...obscure...
for this very reason, since it's difficult
to share the same inconsequentiality
if you see what I mean
and this unintentional obscurity
can sometimes seem
of course I know you wouldn't
but let's say to an uninformed superficial reader -
like pretension?
I hope you don't mind my mentioning this
it's only because I do admire your writing so much
and I know that the prizes and awards you've won
proves that no-one could possibly accuse you of pretension
it's just that I thought I should say how it seems
to a very ordinary reader. I hope you will read this
in the spirit it's meant. And I do look forward
very much to reading your next book
now the library stocks them.
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Thank You Reader Of This Poem
THANK YOU READER OF THIS POEM
Thank you reader of this poem
Among the billions of pages
And innumerable possibilities
For giving your time
You have given
A bit of your light
To these lines.
Thank you reader of this poem
For the kindness of your Attention.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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