POETRY QUOTES V

quotations about poetry


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Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
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A Defence of Poetry


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Tags: Percy Bysshe Shelley


No wonder poets sometimes have to seem
So much more businesslike than businessmen.
Their wares are so much harder to get rid of.

ROBERT FROST

"New Hampshire"

Tags: Robert Frost


I think that believing in language -- in the ability of words to bring even an imagined reality into being -- is a big part of what it means to write poetry. If something like an idea or a belief is capable of being imagined or even described, then the possibility that it will be acted upon becomes much more likely. I think that many of my poems are attempts to take myself up on that premise, to step into conversation with voices and events that require me to decide something: what do I believe is right? What is the more subtle or subjective view of this situation? What must I challenge myself to understand?

TRACY K. SMITH

interview, Ploughshares Literary Magazine, May 30, 2012

Tags: Tracy K. Smith


I think it was rather an advantage not having any living poets in England or America in whom one took any particular interest. I don't know what it would be like but I think it would be a rather troublesome distraction to have such a lot of dominating presences, as you call them, about. Fortunately we weren't bothered by each other.

T. S. ELIOT

The Paris Review, spring-summer 1959

Tags: T. S. Eliot


I think a poem, when it works, is an action of the mind captured on a page, and the reader, when he engages it, has to enter into that action. And so his mind repeats that action and travels again through the action, but it is a movement of yourself through a thought, through an activity of thinking, so by the time you get to the end you're different than you were at the beginning and you feel that difference.

ANNE CARSON

The Paris Review, fall 2004

Tags: Anne Carson


A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses.

JEAN COCTEAU

"Le Secret Professionnel", A Call to Order

Tags: Jean Cocteau


A poet does not work by square or line.

WILLIAM COWPER

Conversation

Tags: William Cowper


The emperor would prefer the poet to keep away from politics, the emperor's domain, so that he can manage things the way he likes.

CHINUA ACHEBE

Conjunctions, Fall 1991

Tags: Chinua Achebe


Poetry is never a sensible choice on financial grounds. Burglary beats poetry, when it comes to making money.

GARRISON KEILLOR

"Does love have to be a five-alarm fire?", Salon, July 15, 1998

Tags: Garrison Keillor


O gracious God! how far have we
Profaned thy heavenly gift of poesy!

JOHN DRYDEN

To the Pious Memory of Mrs. Anne Killegrew

Tags: John Dryden


Moving through decades of carefully selected writing changes us; it reminds us that poetry is a form of activism and that language can shift our experience and understanding of the world, can do something beyond the page.

ERICA KAUFMAN

"The End of Gender", Boston Review, May 4, 2016


I string sounds together. But to string them I have to remember a bunch of old ones I heard somewhere and then juggle them into a new rhythm and shape.

FRANK LOESSER

letter to Angel Steinbeck, A Most Remarkable Fella: Frank Loesser and the Guys and Dolls in His Life

Tags: Frank Loesser


Here! is this you on the top of Fan-ko Mountain,
Wearing a huge hat in the noon-day sun?
How thin, how wretchedly thin, you have grown!
You must have been suffering from poetry again.

LI BAI

"Addressed Humorously to Tu Fu"

Tags: Li Bai


He that would earn the Poet's sacred name,
Must write for future as for present ages.

CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH

"The Poet"


A poet hurts himself by writing prose; as a racehorse hurts his motion by condescending to draw a team.

WILLIAM SHENSTONE

Essays on Men and Manners


The more serious poetry of the race has a philosophical structure of thought. It contains beliefs and conceptions in regard to the nature of man and the universe, God and the soul, fate and providence, suffering, evil and destiny. Great poetry always has, like the higher religion, a metaphysical content. It deals with the same august issues, experiences and conceptions as metaphysics or first philosophy.

JOSEPH ALEXANDER LEIGHTON

The Field of Philosophy

Tags: Joseph Alexander Leighton


Some people pretend they never were in love and never wrote poetry; two weaknesses which they dare not own -- one of the heart, the other of the mind.

JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE

"Of the Affections", Les Caractères

Tags: Jean de La Bruyere


I approach poetry and spirituality like literary nitroglycerin -- a little can do a lot and you better damn well be careful with it.

CRAIG JOHNSON

"A Conversation with Craig Johnson", The Cold Dish

Tags: Craig Johnson


For verses and poems I can turn to true food.

ST. AUGUSTINE

Confessions

Tags: St. Augustine


There has never been a great poet who wasn't also a great reader of poetry.

EDWARD HIRSCH

interview, 2007

Tags: Edward Hirsch