poems are lumps

Poems are lumps—physical entities. This does not mean, of course, that they are not about something—the complete dependence of all the paths, the threads, time-space, History, the Social. And the more unrestrainedly the poet gives himself up to the materiality, the more precisely these lumps give off the quality of his conscious effort, of his opinions and ideas. Which is far more interesting than the opinions and ideas themselves—only physical submission shows how long the succession is, demonstrates their real drama.

—Per Kirkeby, “Painterly Poetry,” Selected Essays from Bravura (Van Abbemuseum, 1982)

cat about the house

A poem is about something the way a cat is about the house.

—Allen Grossman

[Often cited as: "Art is about something the way a cat is about the house."]

poem to poem

Poems, I am saying, are neither about 'subjects' nor about 'themselves.' They are necessarily about other poems; a poem is a response to a poem, as a poet is a response to a poet, or a person to his parent.

—Harold Bloom, A Map of Misreading (Oxford Univ. Press, 1975)