Poetry

"Everything one invents is true, you may be perfectly sure of that. Poetry is as precise as geometry."

"Always fatuity, vulgarity, as soon as human passion is touched. [...] Just as some poetry is of the eye (form, colour) and some of the ear, so Keats is of the palate. Not only has he constant reference to its pleasures, but the general sensation after reading him is one of tasting. 'What's the harm?' Well, taste for some reason or the other can't carry one far into the world of beauty—that reason being perhaps that though you don't want comradership there you do want the possibility of comradership, and A cannot swallow B's mouthful by any possibility:....and this exclusiveness (to maunder on) also attaches to the physical side of sex though not the least to the spiritual."

"A poem...begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. It is a reaching-out toward expression; an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where an emotion finds the thought and the thought finds the words."

"Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down."

"The person who spends his time criticizing the play around him will never write poetry. He will write criticism."

"The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight and ends in wisdom."

"I could define poetry this way: it is that which is lost out of both prose and verse in translation."

"Poetry is the language in which man explores his own amazement."

"The world's history is a divine poem, of which the history of every nation is a canto, and every man a word. Its strains have been pealing along down the centuries, and though there have been mingled the discords of warring cannon and dying men, yet to the Christian philosopher and historian — the humble listener — there has been a Divine melody running through the song which speaks of hope and halcyon days to come."

"Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary."

"Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It's that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that's what the poet does."

"Poetry is the only place where you get an individual person telling his subjective truth, what he really thinks, as distinct from what he wants people to think he thinks. [...] After all, the people making political speeches, they’re writing prose, if not poetry, and they are trying to get a little flowery language in there, but the language is shifty, and the language is manipulative, and people who are advertising, or even doing ordinary mass-media, are still inhibited and can’t say what they really think, but the poet can say what he really thinks, authentically, and that’s the advantage, and it’s longer-lasting than the immediate radio-broadcast or television-broadcast, because a poem is like a radio that can broadcast continually, for thousands of years."

"A poem is a naked person . . . some people say that I am a poet."

"Doeg, though without knowing how or why, Made still a blundering kind of melody; Spurr'd boldly on, and dash'd through thick and thin, Through sense and nonsense, never out nor in; Free from all meaning whether good or bad, And in one word, heroically mad."

"A certain lady went to see the show, Her real name I know not, nor can guess, And so we'll call her Laura, if you please, Because it slips into my verse with ease."

"Poetry must have something in it that is barbaric, vast and wild."

"To see the Summer Sky Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie — True Poems flee —"

"I by no means rank poetry high in the scale of intelligence—this may look like affectation—but it is my real opinion—it is the lava of the imagination, whose eruption prevents an earthquake"

"Poetry must find ways of breaking distance. … all languages are dialects that are made to break new grounds."

"Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular."

"For me, poetry has been an exercise in freedom. Freedom is like a muscle-the more you exercise it, the stronger it gets. Poetry can give you a sense of choice. It's free on every level. Language and memory have no price tags on them. You have limitless choices-in form, language, subject matter-that spill over into life."

"For dear to gods and men is sacred song. Self-taught I sing; by Heaven and Heaven alone, The genuine seeds of poesy are sown."

"Poetry is a form of magic for me."

"For a man to become a poet, he must be in love... or miserable."

"Nor florid prose, nor honied lies of rhyme, Can blazon evil deeds, or consecrate a crime."

"How we have been pulled from the land! And how poetry has worked hard to set us free, uncage us, keep us from split tongues that mimic the voices of our captors. It returns us to our land. Poetry is a string of words that parades without a permit. It is a lockbox of words to put an ear to as we try to crack the safe of language, listening for the right combination, the treasure inside. It is life resonating. It is sometimes called Prayer, Soothsaying, Complaint, Invocation, Proclamation, Testimony, Witness."

"another wonderful thing that happens in Chinese language, not now maybe, but in classical times, was a poet is somebody who can write and sing and paint his poem. See how integrated that is? All those parts of your body are connected. You're not fragmented. Even now, the poets still do calligraphy."

"no verses which are written by water-drinkers can please, or be long-lived"

"Even when poetry has a meaning, as it usually has, it may be inadvisable to draw it out … and perfect understanding will sometimes almost extinguish pleasure."

"A poem is good if it contains a new analogy and startles the reader out of the habit of treating words as counters."

"Poetry, with its brevity and precision, is a natural training ground, or whetstone, for critical thinking. All of its devices, in addition to the highly accessible metaphor and image, are consummate communicators and powerful persuaders, for good or ill—mood, tone, personification, diction, allusion, symbol, and so many more—and all, when diligently pursued engender, or sharpen, critical thought, food for the brain as well as the heart."

"Sir, what is Poetry? Why, Sir, it is much easier to say what it is not. We all know what light is: but it is not easy to tell what it is."

"Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth, by calling imagination to the help of reason."

"The essence of poetry is invention; such invention as, by producing something unexpected, surprises and delights."

"Still may syllables jar with time, Still may reason war with rhyme, Resting never!"

"What’s important about poetry in the context of leadership is that most of the time, power has to do with dominance. But poetry is never about dominance. Poetry is powerful but it cannot even aspire to dominate anyone. It means making a connection. That’s what it means."

"Poetry helps me to imagine freedom...Poetry can help lift the ceiling from our brains so that we can imagine liberation."

"In a world dominated by the discourses of globalization a book of translations forces us to reflect and meditate, and it alerts us not only to differences but also connections and intersections among communities, religions and ethnicities. That there are similarities and there are difference. Both are in fact important. Context shapes the way one lives. The subject matter too could be different. But the meditative dimension, the concern with belonging, and with identity and rootedness are similar."

"In Poetry I have a few axioms, and you will see how far I am from their centre. 1st. I think Poetry should surprise by a fine excess, and not by Singularity—it should strike the Reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a Remembrance—2nd Its touches of Beauty should never be half way thereby making the reader breathless instead of content: the rise, the progress, the setting of imagery should like the Sun come natural natural too him—shine over him and set soberly although in magnificence leaving him in the Luxury of twilight—but it is easier to think what Poetry should be than to write it—and this leads me on to another axiom. That if Poetry comes not as naturally as the Leaves to a tree it had better not come at all."

"If more politicians knew poetry, and more poets knew politics, I am convinced the world would be a little better place in which to live."

"When power leads man towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses. For art establishes the basic human truth which must serve as the touchstone of our judgment."

"Love has its priests in the poets, and one hears at times a poet's voice which worthily extols it."

"For me, the prospect of expression through poetry transforms solitary silence and an empty page into sheer pleasure. I feel unafraid, knowing I can break all the rules, invent my own forms. No matter what persona I take on, my voice remains accessible and recognizable. There is no artifice, no pose, no sense that I have to transform myself into someone else. As a poet, I remain comfortably disrespectful. I experiment, take risks which sometimes work and sometimes don't."

"what, in essence, is poetry. To me it seems that it is a magical transporter through time and space because it manages to contain the present, the past, even the future. Poetry is also the only literary medium that allows for the deformation of reality in service of artistic vision while at the same time endowing that vision with a marked purpose defined by all the attributes of reality."

"I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree. … Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree."

"1968 was one of those rare times in America when poetry seemed to matter. Telephone service in New York City in 1968 offered a “dial-a-poem.” A government pilot program that year sent poets around the country to public high schools to give readings and discussions. The response was wildly enthusiastic. In Detroit, poet Donald Hall was trapped in a hallway at Amelia Earhart Junior High School by excited students shouting, “Say us a poem!” Obligingly he shouted one, but then the crowd had doubled with new arrivals and he had to read it again."

"Poetry: play on words."

"The imagination, which is the source of poetry, has in every country been the beginning as well as the ornament of civilization. It civilizes because it refines."

"We deny that poetry is fiction; its merit and its power lie alike in its truth:"

"All that is worth remembering in life, is the poetry of it."