"If poetry alters the way in which the reader views the world, then it has had its desired effect." ― John Barton Topic(s): Poetry More From John Barton "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." "Sometimes poetry is inspired by the conversation entered into by reading other poems." "No poem is easily grasped; so why should any reader expect fast results?" More In Poetry "If you don’t have any fight in you, you might as well be dead."― Scott Caan "That’s a wonderful change that’s taken place, and so most poetry today is published, if not directly by the person, certainly by the enterprise of the poet himself, working with his friends."― A. R. Ammons "Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world."― Percy Bysshe Shelley