In POETRY IN THE MAKING (1970) Hughes stated that there is no ideal form of poetry or writing. His poetry ranged from free verse to highly structured forms and rhyme schemes. He gradually abandoned traditional forms and stated that the "very sound of metre calls up the ghosts of the past and it is difficult to sing one's own tune against the choir."

Ted Hughes (1930-1998) - byname of Edward J. Hughes

"I think of poems as a short of animals. They have their own life, like animals, by which I mean that they seem quite separate from any person, even from their author, and nothing can be added to them or taken away without maiming and perhaps even killing them. And they have a certain wisdom. they know something special... something perhaps which we are very curious to learn" --Ted Huges

"may i feel said he
(i’ll squeal said she
just once said he)
it’s fun said she" -- E.E. (Edward Estlin) Cummings

An Unofficial EE Cummings Starting Point

When he arrived at Oxford as an undergraduate, W. H. Auden went to see his tutor in literature, who asked the young man what he meant to do in later life. "I am going to be a poet," Auden answered. "Ah, yes," replied the tutor, and began a small lecture on verse exercises improving one's prose. Auden scowled. "You don't understand at all," he interrupted. "I mean a great poet."

W.H.Auden. Selected poems

"Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers." -- T. S. Eliot

What the Thunder Said

"I like any and all of my associations with music – writing, playing, and listening. We write and play from our perspective, and the audience listens from its perspective. If and when we agree, I am lucky." -- Duke Ellington

Official Web Site of Duke Ellington

"And with your commission --
And your ambition --
And their tradition
Of acquisition
We'll build
A Place
For a new world to play.
Where have you been all my life?
Don't go away!" -- Stephen Sondheim

Where Stephen Sondheim and the internet collide

"True music must repeat the thought and inspirations of the people and the time. My people are Americans and my time is today." -- George Gershwin

"I once referred to the music department at Universal as a salt mine. But it was a good salt mine, and younger composers in film today do not have access to that kind of on-the-job training. Being on staff there I was called upon to do everything. I mean, everything. Whenever they needed a piece of source music, music that comes from a source in the picture, such as a band, a jukebox, or a radio, they would call me in. I would do an arrangement on something that was in the Universal library, or I would write a new piece for a jazz band or a Latin band or whatever. I guess in every business you have to learn the routine--in film scoring, the cliches--before you can begin to find your own way." -- Henry Mancini

Musicmaker Henry Mancini

"I have to laugh to myself. I don't find it work to write music, because I enjoy it. I'd find an evening of bridge hard work, because you have to think like hell and at the end you get nothing for it." -- Richard Rodgers

On This Day: Birthdays: June 28

"You want people to like the songs. You want people to like everything you do. If you didn't, you wouldn't be human. And, you'd like to walk along the street and hear some kid whistling a tune that you wrote. This is one of the most gratifying sensations in the world." -- Richard Rodgers

Easy to Remember:
A Centennial Tribute to Richard Rodgers

“I don’t have any background, but I now instinctively understand how film works. And I don’t think you can teach it. One just has to do it,” --Hans Zimmer

Speaking Through Music

Mr. Porter himself could not characterize his songs.

"I don't know how my music gets that way," he said when he was asked to make the effort. "I simply can't analyze it. I can analyze the music of others. The word for Dick Rodgers's melodies, I think, is holy. For Jerome Kern, sentimental. For Irving Berlin, simplicity. For my own, I don't know."

On This Day: Birthdays: June 9

"It is the melody which is the charm of music, and it is that which is most difficult to produce" --Joseph Haydn.