Vachel Lindsay

“I will not be a slave to my yesterday. I am creator, not a parrot.”

“Our Christmas shall be rare at dawning there, And wake, no more to sin.”

“I am still making my living reciting my verses for crowds who refuse to buy my books. I must do this, as all American rhymers must, however sick I may be of the sound of my own voice.”

“I have sung my songs to my own tunes for most of the English departments of the state universities of the forty-eight states of the nation, and the English departments of other universities and colleges; and I have been recalled to many of these seven and eight times, which matters are a source of great pride to me. And I have brought out three books where the songs were based on my own pen-and-ink pictures.”

“The fact that you can write verse is in itself a certificate that you can write prose.”

“There were three great Virginia poets in the very beginning — George Washington, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson. “What!” you say. “We do not even know the names of their publishers. They were not poets!” Well, how do you know? Did you ever really read them? What do you know about it? Their very names will breathe poetry forever.”

“I think that my first poetic impulse is for music; second a definite conception with the ring of the universe...”

“Poetry is for the inner ear”