Every English poet should master the rules of grammar before he attempts to bend or break them.
Robert Graves
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.
When the days of rejoicing are over,
When the flags are stowed safely away,
They will dream of another wild ‘War to End Wars’
And another wild Armistice day.
Robert Graves-Armistice Day 1918
Every English poet should master the rules of grammar before he attempts to bend or break them.
Robert Graves
