“...when dragged into prominence by half poets, the result is not poetry, nor till the poets among us can be "literalists of the imagination" --above insolence and triviality and can present for inspection, "imaginary gardens with real toads in them," shall we have it.”

“[Marianne Moore's definition of genuine poetry] -- Imaginary gardens with real toads in them.”

“The poet Marianne Moore famously wrote of 'real toads in imaginary gardens,' and the labyrinth offers us the possibility of being real creatures in symbolic space...In such spaces as the labyrinth we cross over [between real and imaginary spaces]; we are really travelling, even if the destination is only symbolic.”

“... imaginary gardens with real toads in them ...... if you demand on one hand,the raw material of poetry inall its rawness andthat which is on the other handgenuine, then you are interested in poetry.”

“All poets write bad poetry. Bad poets publish them, good poets burn them.”

“we shall board our imagined ship and wildly sail among sacred islands of the mad till death shatters the fabulous stars and makes us real.--from "Tale of A Tub", written 1956”