A poet more than thirty years old is simply an overgrown child.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that true creativity and poetic expression are rooted in the wonder and innocence of childhood.
H. L. Mencken's quote reflects the idea that a poet's ability to perceive and express the world creatively is closely tied to a childlike perspective. As one matures, the purity and spontaneity of that view can be lost, making a poet over thirty seem like a child trapped in an adult's body, still yearning for that imaginative freedom and simplicity.
In practice
This quote could be used in a poetry workshop to inspire participants to embrace their childlike creativity.
I know a good many men of great learning-that is, men born with an extraordinary eagerness and capacity to acquire knowledge. One and all, they tell me that they can't recall learning anything of any value in school. All that schoolmasters managed to accomplish with them was to test and determine the amount of knowledge that they had already acquired independently-and not infrequently the determination was made clumsily and inaccurately.
It takes a long while for a naturally trustful person to reconcile himself to the idea that after all God will not help him
It is the theory of all modern civilized governments that they protect and foster the liberty of the citizen; it is the practice of all of them to limit its exercise, and sometimes very narrowly.
The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts.
The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy.
It is my conviction that no normal man ever fell in love, within the ordinary meaning of the term, after the age of thirty.
Sound has spoiled the most ancient of the world's arts, the art of pantomime, and has canceled out the great beauty that is silence.
Play well, or play badly, but play truly.
I've had to make the transition from sweeping in for 15 minutes, doing my stuff and clearing out, to carrying a movie for the duration - in a dress.
The only people I would care to be with now are artists and people who have suffered: those who know what beauty is, and those who know what sorrow is: nobody else interests me.
I really admire stand-up, and I think I would have loved to learn how to do it. I think it's terrifying and thrilling. A really cool thing to do. It's a dying art, in a way.
The process of writing a novel is like taking a journey by boat. You have to continually set yourself on course. If you get distracted or allow yourself to drift, you will never make it to the destination. It's not like highly defined train tracks or a highway; this is a path that you are creating discovering. The journey is your narrative. Keep to it and there will be a tale told.
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