Poetry Quotes
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No poet is ever completely lost. He has the secret of his childhood safe with him, like some secret cave in which he can kneel. And, when we read his poetry, we can join him there.
Peter Ackroyd
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Poetry was the first step, and from the age of 18, there was nothing else I wanted to do.
Christopher Koch
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The thing about great poetry is we have no defenses against it.
David Whyte
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When I came into consciousness as a writer when I was in my early 20s, I just assumed that a writer did - a poet writer did everything all at once. I would write poetry, and while writing poetry I would also write work in the world - if I could get into the world.
W. S. Di Piero
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For most Americans, poetry plays no role in their everyday lives. But also for most Americans, contemporary painting or jazz or sculpture play no role either. I'm not saying poetry is singled out as a special thing to ignore.
Billy Collins
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Poetry, in the past, was the center of our society, but with modernity it has retreated to the outskirts. I think the exile of poetry is also the exile of the best of humankind.
Octavio Paz
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I think that concrete poetry seems to have, as far as I can see, come to a kind of a dead end. It doesn't seem to be going any further than it went in its high period of about five or six years ago.
James Laughlin
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To be honest, I wasn't crazy about the kind of poetry I found in high school English books. I didn't get really excited about poetry until I discovered Lorca in college. If it wasn't for surrealism, I'm not sure I'd have become so involved in poetry. I was attracted by the extravagant imagery and elements of fantasy. This was in the '70s and it seemed to fit the psychedelic mood of the times. I found it liberating.
Elaine Equi
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He says his aim is poetry. One does not aim at poetry with pistols. At poets, perhaps.
Tom Stoppard
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Tragedy is dead! Poetry itself died with it! Away, away with you, puny, stunted imitators! Away with you to Hades, and eat your fill of the old masters' crumbs!
Friedrich Nietzsche
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Form is endlessly interesting to me, and I love poetry as a formal enterprise.
Mary Szybist
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Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words.
Edgar Allan Poe
