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
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.
You don't have to suffer to be a poet; adolescence is enough suffering for anyone
It's not a how-to-do-it school but more nearly a confessional in which people who have spent their lives at the writing process itemize their failures while clinging to their hopes.
Boys are the cash of war.
A university is a reading and discussion club. If students knew how to use the library, they wouldn't need the rest of the buildings. The faculty's job, in great part, is to teach students how to use a library in a living way. All a student should really need is access to the library and a place to sleep.
Boys are the cash of war. Whoever said: we're not free spenders- doesn't know our like.
The reader deserves an honest opinion. If he doesn't deserve it, give it to him anyhow.