John Ciardi
John Ciardi
John Anthony Ciardiwas an American poet, translator, and etymologist. While primarily known as a poet, he also translated Dante's Divine Comedy, wrote several volumes of children's poetry, pursued etymology, contributed to the Saturday Review as a columnist and long-time poetry editor, and directed the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference in Vermont. In 1959, Ciardi published a book on how to read, write, and teach poetry, How Does a Poem Mean?, which has proven to be among the most-used books of its...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionDramatist
Date of Birth24 June 1916
Early to bed and early to rise probably indicates unskilled labor.
You don't have to suffer to be a poet; adolescence is enough suffering for anyone.
Fermentation and civilization are inseparable.
Within a single scene, it seems to be unwise to have access to the inner reflections of more than one character. The reader generally needs a single character as the means of perception, as the character to whom the events are happening, as the character with whom he is to empathize in order to have the events of the writing happen to him.
Poetry lies its way to the truth.
Love is the word used to label the sexual excitement of the young, the habituation of the middle-aged, and the mutual dependence of the old.
You have to fall in love with hanging around words.
Modern art is what happens when painters stop looking at girls and persuade themselves that they have a better idea.
Every game ever invented by mankind, is a way of making things hard for the fun of it!
Let our love be like an arch- two weaknesses leaning together to form one strength.
The classroom should be an entrance into the world, not an escape from it.
If a man means his writing seriously, he must mean to write well. But how can he write well until he learns to see what he has written badly. His progress toward good writing and his recognition of bad writing are bound to unfold at something like the same rate.
Men marry what they need. I marry you.
The day will happen whether or not you get up.