partisan of truth

The poet looks over a broad terrain and over vast stretches of time. He makes observations on the problems of his own time, to be sure, but he is a partisan only in the sense that he is a partisan of the truth. He arouses doubts and uncertainties and brings everything into question.

—Zbigniew Herbert, quoted in “Objects Don’t Lie: Talk with a Polish Poet” by Stephen Stepanchev, The New Leader, Vol. 51, August 1968, No. 16.

simple and practical

In my civilization it's customary to describe poetry as discarded, almost moribund, an all-too-exclusive art form, without power to break through. And the poets try to push themselves upon the world of the mass media, to get a few crumbs of attention. I think it is time to emphasize that poetry—in spite of all the bad poets and bad readers—starts from an advantageous position. A piece of paper, some words: it's simple and practical. It gives independence. Poetry requires no heavy, vulnerable apparatus that has to be lugged around, it isn't dependent on temperamental performers, dictatorial directors, bright producers with irresistible ideas. No big money is at stake. A poem doesn't come in one copy that somebody buys and locks up in a storeroom waiting for its market value to go up; it can't be stolen from a museum or become currency in the buying and selling of narcotics, or get burned up by a vandal.

When I started writing, at 16, I had a couple of like-minded school friends. Sometimes, when the lessons seemed more than usually trying, we would pass notes to each other between our desks—poems and aphorisms, which would come back with the more or less enthusiastic comments of the recipient. What an impression those scribblings would make! There is the fundamental situation of poetry. The lesson of official life goes rumbling on. We send inspired notes to one another.

—Tomas Tranströmer,"Answer to Uj Iras," Ironwood 13 (1979), pp38-39, translated by Judith Moffett.

behind painting

Writing is fifty years behind painting. I propose to apply the painters' techniques to writing; things as simple as immediate as collage or montage.

—Brion Gysin,"Cut-Ups Self-Explained," Let the Mice In (Something Else Press, 1973) edited by Jan Herman

ahead of its time

And poetry, which is generally ahead of its time, may go so far ahead as to seem behind in time.

—Eugenio Montale, Poet In Our Time (Marion Boyars, 1979)