HERMAN VAN ROMPUY (4)

Am I a politician lost in poetry or a poet lost in politics? One could replace this by: am I a man of thought lost in politics or a politician lost in the world of thought?.



I have poetic feelings, which is something else than being a poet.


Poetry is an education. I was so lucky to have had good teachers for Greek and Latin. We read Horatius, Vergilius, but also Juvenalis and Ovidius and of course Homeros and Sophocles.


If Guido Gezelle may be called the greatest poet in Flemish literature, then Shakespeare is the main poet in world literature. It puzzles me how he managed to create such a poetic 'oeuvre', while being a money-grubber.


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EUGENIO MONTALE (3)

This proves that great lyric poetry can die, be reborn, die again, but will always remain one of the most outstanding creations of the human soul.


One can't produce a single work without the help of the slow, assiduous, corrosive worm of thinking.


Poetry is the art which is technically within the grasp of everyone: a piece of paper and a pencil and one is ready.


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