POETRY QUOTES VII

quotations about poetry

Away! away! I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy.

JOHN KEATS

"Ode to a Nightingale"

Tags: John Keats


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

CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH

"The Poet"


I've had people explain to me what one of my poems meant, and I've been surprised that it means that to them. If a person can use a poem of mine to interpret her life or his life, good. I can't control that. Nor would I want to.

MAYA ANGELOU

Facebook post, October 4, 2012

Tags: Maya Angelou


It might sound a little glib, but maybe I don't know what a finished poem is. I lean toward the school that a poem is never finished, it's just abandoned.

WALTER BARGEN

"An interview with Walter Bargen, first poet laureate of Missouri"

Tags: Walter Bargen


A poet is a painter in his way, he draws to the life, but in another kind; we draw the nobler part, the soul and the mind; the pictures of the pen shall outlast those of the pencil, and even worlds themselves.

APHRA BEHN

Oroonoko

Tags: Aphra Behn


Written poetry is worth reading once, and then should be destroyed. Let the dead poets make way for others. Then we might even come to see that it is our veneration for what has already been created, however beautiful and valid it may be, that petrifies us.

ANTONIN ARTAUD

The Theater and Its Double

Tags: Antonin Artaud


One of the current great problems in the world is fundamentalism of every kind -- political, spiritual -- and poetry is an antidote to fundamentalism. Poetry is about the clarities that you find when you don't simplify. Poetry is about complexity, nuance, subtlety. Poems also create larger fields of possibility. The imagination is limitless, so even when a person is confronted with an unchangeable outer circumstance, one thing poems give you is the sense that there's always, still, a changeability, a malleability, of inner circumstance. That's the beginning of freedom.

JANE HIRSHFIELD

"How can poems transform the world? A chat with poet Jane Hirshfield.", Washington Post, May 13, 2015


A poet does not work by square or line.

WILLIAM COWPER

Conversation

Tags: William Cowper


A poet can survive everything but a misprint.

OSCAR WILDE

"The Children of the Poets", Pall Mall Gazette, October 14, 1886

Tags: Oscar Wilde


You will never be alone with a poet in your pocket.

JOHN ADAMS

letter to John Quincy Adams, May 14, 1781

Tags: John Adams


Language, colour, form, and religious and civil habits of action, are all the instruments and materials of poetry; they may be called poetry by that figure of speech which considers the effect as a synonym of the cause. But poetry in a more restricted sense expresses those arrangements of language, and especially metrical language, which are created by that imperial faculty; whose throne is curtained within the invisible nature of man. And this springs from the nature itself of language, which is a more direct representation of the actions and passions of our internal being, and is susceptible of more various and delicate combinations, than colour, form, or motion, and is more plastic and obedient to the control of that faculty of which it is the creation. For language is arbitrarily produced by the imagination and has relation to thoughts alone; but all other materials, instruments and conditions of art, have relations among each other, which limit and interpose between conception and expression The former is as a mirror which reflects, the latter as a cloud which enfeebles, the light of which both are mediums of communication. Hence the fame of sculptors, painters, and musicians, although the intrinsic powers of the great masters of these arts may yield in no degree to that of those who have employed language as the hieroglyphic of their thoughts, has never equalled that of poets in the restricted sense of the term, as two performers of equal skill will produce unequal effects from a guitar and a harp. The fame of legislators and founders of religions, so long as their institutions last, alone seems to exceed that of poets in the restricted sense; but it can scarcely be a question, whether, if we deduct the celebrity which their flattery of the gross opinions of the vulgar usually conciliates, together with that which belonged to them in their higher character of poets, any excess will remain.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

A Defence of Poetry

Tags: Percy Bysshe Shelley


The bad poet is usually unconscious where he ought to be conscious, and conscious where he ought to be unconscious.

T. S. ELIOT

Tradition and the Individual Talent

Tags: T. S. Eliot


Much of the poetry we know about comes from our high school English classes where teachers turned to the 19th century for inspiration. While some of those poems are wonderful, quite a few are old-fashioned enough to sound obscure, and have contributed to the popular idea that poetry is unfathomable and not something meant for ordinary people. All of this is horse-twaddle, if you'll pardon my French. Poetry is for everyone, and here's how you can tell: whenever something big happens in the world or in an individual life, people turn toward it: Suddenly poems are flying around the internet, being shared, liked, and retweeted hundreds of times. Poems are read at weddings, christenings, and funerals, at opening ceremonies and presidential inaugurals. This is because poetry is the language of emotion.

MOLLY FISK

"Poetry Is All Yours", Women's Voices for Change, April 9, 2016


Everything you invent is true: you can be sure of that. Poetry is a subject as precise as geometry.

JULIAN BARNES

Flaubert's Parrot

Tags: Julian Barnes


As a prose writer, I work with language; and those who work with language turn to poetry for renewal.

SAMUEL R. DELANY

Rain Taxi, winter 2000/2001

Tags: Samuel R. Delany


No doubt Plato's notion that poets should chant nothing but hymns to the Gods and praises of virtue is a little narrow and exacting, but if they are to sing songs worthy of themselves, and of mankind, they must be on the side of virtue and of the Gods.

ALFRED AUSTIN

The Bridling of Pegasus

Tags: Alfred Austin


Deprive poetry of this which it has in common with philosophy--the seeing of things as they are--and the beauty and fragrance of the flower are gone.

JOHN GRIER HIBBEN

The Problems of Philosophy

Tags: John Grier Hibben


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


I hope that the feeling of making poetry is not confined to the people who write it down.... I am sure that the great glory of poetry in one's heart does not wait on achievement.

STELLA BENSON

This Is the End

Tags: Stella Benson


One breath taken completely; one poem, fully written, fully read -- in such a moment, anything can happen.

JANE HIRSHFIELD

Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry

Tags: Jane Hirshfield