Quotes from X. J. Kennedy

In poetry, only emotion endures.

One-woman waterfall, she wearsHer slow descent like a long capeAnd pausing, on the final stairCollects her motions into shape.

I rang them up while touring Timbucktoo,Those bosom chums to whom you're known as"Who?"

To leap over the wall of self, to look through another's eyes--this is valuable experience, which literature offers.

I like poems where you don't really know whether to laugh or cry when you read them.

The attitude that poetry should not be analyzed is prevalent among many who consider themselves experts on children's literature. But I suspected that kids like to look closely at things and figure out what makes them go.

I don't think anybody is a poet 24/7, only in those rare moments when a person is producing a poem.

To me, a poem that's in rhyme and meter is the difference between watching a film in full color and watching a film in black and white. Not that a few black and white films aren't wonderful. So are certain successful pieces of free verse.

The Purpose of Time is to Prevent Everything from Happening at Once

I'd be glad to go out on a limb with those Who want nothing beyond what the wind bestows, Were I not bound to roots, dug in deep to bear Never being done grasping for light and air

As a writer given to the old formalities of rhyme and meter, I sometimes feel endangered these days.

My real name is Joe Kennedy, but if you live in Massachusetts, you can't sign 'Joe Kennedy.' So, back in 1957, I stuck the X on my name to be different from those people in Hyannis Port.