This was very good advice but she still thought that living in a major city was key

If you want to move to the city, you can, Miss Grehan said. And studying poetry at university is a wonderful thing to do. But more important is to read poetry, and write poetry, every day. It doesn’t have to be for long. If just once a day people read a poem instead of picking up their phone, I guarantee you the world would be a better place. When she had gone Elaine said that this was very good advice but she still thought that living in a major city was key.

P. Murray, The bee sting (2023), Loc. 800

They just should not, in Susan’s very definite and precise opinion, be allowed to take up more than a page to say so

She listened with half an ear to what the rest of the class was doing. It was a poem about daffodils. Apparently the poet had liked them very much. Susan was quite stoical about this. It was a free country. People could like daffodils if they wanted to. They just should not, in Susan’s very definite and precise opinion, be allowed to take up more than a page to say so.

Terry Pratchett, Soul Music (1994), 15

Theodorous says I shouldn't write poetry until I've studied the last thousand years

Theodorous says I shouldn't write poetry
until I've studied the last thousand years

of the canon, learnt it     off by heart
and can quote it at random, and imitate it

before attempting my own stuff, and he says
it's imperative I start with hendecasyllables

a la Pliny Jr, but I retaliated, saying
I found the lot of it B-O-R-I-N-G

B. Evaristo, The Emperor's babe (2001), 83-84