All John Barton Quotes
Poets can't resist the dramatic pull of their lives and so inevitably write autobiographical verse.
John Barton
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A literary journal is intended to connect writer with reader; the role of the editor is to mediate.
John Barton
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Poets have to be sensitive to their audience, but it does not mean that they censor themselves. I realise my audience is diverse. Some will read with empathy and curiosity while others will take offense.
John Barton
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Writing can sometimes be exploitative. I like to take a few steps of remove in order to respect the privacy of the subject. If readers make the link, they have engaged with the poem.
John Barton
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I have been told by a member of the board of one of Canada's most prominent literary magazines that a submission of mine once caused a great deal of controversy.
John Barton
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Some readers allow their prejudices to blind them. A good reader knows how to disregard inappropriate responses.
John Barton
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You can never step into the same book twice, because you are different each time you read it.
John Barton
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The reader's challenge is to replicate the experiment by reading the poem and to draw their own conclusions.
John Barton
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The experiment of the poem is mostly intuitive. I write the first draft, pulling in the various elements that interest me, in the hope that their being combined will lead to some kind of insight.
John Barton
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I have become intrigued with the combining of seemingly unrelated ideas or images, or the drawing upon the many, sometimes dissimilar, meanings a word might have.
John Barton
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To me many short poems read and write like beginnings that simply whet my appetite; I want to get over that.
John Barton
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If poetry alters the way in which the reader views the world, then it has had its desired effect.
John Barton
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I sometimes like to tinker with poems that have failed, ones that I have sent aside. Even years afterward, I will revisit them if there is something about them that I cannot give up on.
John Barton
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I find it exhausting to administer a magazine without an office or paid staff.
John Barton
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The community of poets I belong to is not as close as it used to be, if only for the fact that our lives have become busier: jobs, children, and the like.
John Barton
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