Poetry Quotes
-
The philosophy of poetry must acknowledge that the poetic act has no past, at least no recent past, in which its preparation and appearance could be followed.
-
Poetry seems especially like nothing else so much as itself. Poetry is not like, it is the very lining of the inner life.
-
I'm not dismayed that poetry's appeal is limited in scope. That's why we have National Poetry Month. It's a sign of its neglect, which isn't necessarily a negative thing. It's not like we have National TV Month.
-
Whoever lives for poetry must read everything. How often has the light of a new idea sprung for me from a simple brochure! When one allows himself to be animated by new images, he discovers iridescence in the images of old books. Poetic ages unite in a living memory. The new age awakens the old. The old age comes to live again in the new. Poetry is never as unified as when it diversifies.
-
A poet dares be just so clear and no clearer... He unzips the veil from beauty, but does not remove it. A poet utterly clear is a trifle glaring.
-
I'm reading a lot of poetry because it's a lot easier to dip in and dip out when you've got 10 minutes to yourself.
-
If my poetry aims to achieve anything, it's to deliver people from the limited ways in which they see and feel.
-
Writing essays and teaching composition have helped me immensely in writing poetry, because they've forced me to focus on the structure of ideas.
-
For a poet to depict a poet in poetry is a hazardous experiment; in regarding one's own trade a sense of humour and a little wholesome cynicism are not amiss.
-
Tyranny will make an entire population into readers of poetry.
-
The cover was pebbled black leather, the pages onionskin, and he opened it carefully. It was his first Bible, the one his mother had given him, the one that had taken its time showing him what he was supposed to do with his life, his size, that voice of his. It was the one used for his ordination, and when he had buried his mother on a autumn hillside in Tennesee five years ago. King James. He didn't care about the scholars or the accuracy or the bringing of his church into whatever century they claimed it was these days; he cared about the poetry, and about the comfort it brought to those who needed to hear it.
-
Political system is contrary to everything a feminine heart stands for. It lacks tenderness. It lacks poetry. It doesn't nurture. It doesn't love. And without those things, a woman's soul is bereft.
-
In The New Poetry I had attacked the British poets' nervous preference for gentility above all else, and their avoidance of the uncomfortable, destructive truths both of the inner life and of the present time.
-
Prose cannot compete with the economy of poetry, the ability to have a full artistic experience in a short period of time.
-
Good prose is written only face to face with poetry.
-
One of the things that is wonderful about hymns is that they are a sort of universally shared poetry, at least among certain populations.
-
It is part of my creed that the only poetry is history, could we tell it right.
-
My mother carried on and supported us; her ambition had been to write poetry and songs.
-
In Arlington, people would laugh at you if you tried to get people to look at your drawings or listen to your poetry. It was like you thought you were special.
-
I had always been literary, in the sense of loving poetry and discovering novels, but I found my voice, as they say, in an office full of elderly people who looked after blind ex-servicemen.
-
The quietest poetry can be an explosion of joy.
-
A novel is a work of poetry. In order to write it, one must have tranquility of spirit and of impression.
-
Be aroused by poetry; structure yourself with propriety, refine yourself with music.
-
Poetry, far more than fiction, reveals the soul of humanity.
