John Crowe Ransom Ransom Quotations

When critics are waiting to pounce upon poetic style on exactly the same grounds as if it were prose, the poets tremble.

Too much is demanded by the critic, attempted by the poet.

And how can poetry stand up against its new conditions? Its position is perfectly precarious.

The arts generally have had to recognize Modernism - how should poetry escape?

Till now poets were privileged to insert a certain proportion of nonsense - very far in excess of one-half of one per cent - into their otherwise sober documents.