Take a commonplace, clean it and polish it, light it so that it produces the same effect of youth and freshness and originality and spontaneity as it did originally, and you have done a poet's job. The rest is literature.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- A poet makes ordinary things fresh; anything more is just writing.
- In plain terms
- Clean up a normal thing and make it feel new again.
- What can you take from it?
- Refresh the familiar to make it art.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- What makes something original?
- Is simplicity enough?
Another view
Sometimes depth is more valuable than surface freshness.
More from Jean Cocteau
Such is the role of poetry. It unveils, in the strict sense of the word. It lays bare, under a light which shakes off torpor, the surprising things which surro…
Permalink to quote #46 A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses.
Permalink to quote #48 We shelter an angel within us. We must be the guardians of that angel.
Permalink to quote #45
Related quotes
Poetry comes fine-spun from a mind at peace.
OvidOvid quote #6 Poetry must have something in it that is barbaric, vast and wild.
Denis DiderotDenis Diderot quote #52 He cursed Petrarch for redacting verses to sonnets, which he said were like that tyrant's bed, where some who were too short were racked, others too long cut s…
Ben JonsonBen Jonson quote #57