Nine-tenths of English poetic literature is the result either of vulgar careerism or of a poet trying to keep his hand in. Most poets are dead by their late twenties. The award of a pure gold medal for poetry would flatter the recipient unduly: no poem ever attains such carat purity.
Robert Graves - Address, January 1960, to the Oxford University Philological Society. "Poetic Gold," Oxford Addresses on Poetry (1962). Graves had been awarded a gold medal for services to poetry by the National Poetry Society of America.
We forget cruelty and past betrayal,
Heedless of where the next bright bolt may fall
Robert Graves-The White Goddess
Anthropologists are a connecting link between poets and scientists; though their field-work among primitive peoples has often made them forget the language of science.
Robert Graves- Speech, December 6, 1963, London School of Economics. "Mammon," Mammon and the Black Goddess (1965).
Nine-tenths of English poetic literature is the result either of vulgar careerism or of a poet trying to keep his hand in. Most poets are dead by their late twenties. The award of a pure gold medal for poetry would flatter the recipient unduly: no poem ever attains such carat purity.
Robert Graves - Address, January 1960, to the Oxford University Philological Society. "Poetic Gold," Oxford Addresses on Poetry (1962). Graves had been awarded a gold medal for services to poetry by the National Poetry Society of America.
