POETRY QUOTES IX

quotations about poetry

It is a test (a positive test, I do not assert that it is always valid negatively), that genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.

T. S. ELIOT

"Dante"

Tags: T. S. Eliot


The poet is the man that sings,
That plays upon the harp's wild strings,
That reads the tale of starry skies,
That soars aloft on seraph's wings.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN FIELD

"Poetry"

Tags: Benjamin Franklin Field


No verse is free for the man who wants to do a good job.

T. S. ELIOT

The Music of Poetry

Tags: T. S. Eliot


Every genuine poet is necessarily a Columbus. America existed for centuries before Columbus but it was only Columbus who was able to track it down.

YEVGENY ZAMYATIN

We

Tags: Yevgeny Zamyatin


No one ever expects poetry to sell.

ALAN LIGHTMAN

interview, Identity Theory, November 16, 2000

Tags: Alan Lightman


I despise slam poetry. Not as much as I despise ukulele orchestras, but it's up there. You can make all the connections you like to the spoken word performance poetry of the Beats and hippies of the 1950s and '60s (Allen Ginsberg performing Howl in 1959), Harlem roasts of the '20s and '30s, and Flyting (the bardic insult competitions the Anglo-Nordic peoples filled in the long winters with between the fifth and sixteenth centuries) and good luck to you, but I hate it.

ANDREW PAUL WOOD

"Slam poetry is despicable and dumb-ass and not good", The Spinoff, April 27, 2016


Poetry has the power to turn words into darts that shoot under your skin.

PENNY ASHTON

"Poetry Idol's organiser is shocked and saddened to learn that slam poetry is 'dumb-ass and not good'", The Spinoff, April 28, 2016


If Poetry comes not as naturally as Leaves to a tree it had better not come at all.

JOHN KEATS

letter to John Taylor, February 27, 1818

Tags: John Keats


Prose on certain occasions can bear a great deal of poetry: on the other hand, poetry sinks and swoons under a moderate weight of prose ; and neither fan nor burned feather can bring her to herself again.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

Imaginary Conversations

Tags: Walter Savage Landor


If the poet would avoid pepsis in his patients, his scalpel must be as clean as the surgeon's.

AUSTIN O'MALLEY

Keystones of Thought

Tags: Austin O'Malley


A poet is wounded into speech, and he examines these wounds, meticulously, to discover how to heal them. The bad poet harangues at the pain and yowls at the weapons that lacerate him; the great poet explores the inflamed lips of ruined flesh with ice-caked fingers, glittering and precise; but ultimately his poem is the echoing, dual voice reporting the damages.

SAMUEL R. DELANY

The Fall of the Towers

Tags: Samuel R. Delany


All poetry like every work of art proceeds from a swift vision of things.

HONORE DE BALZAC

Louis Lambert

Tags: Honore de Balzac


Beauty is the sole legitimate province of the poem.

EDGAR ALLAN POE

"The Philosophy of Composition"

Tags: Edgar Allan Poe


Rhyme is the rock on which thou art to wreck,
'Tis fatal to thy fame and to thy neck.

JOHN DRYDEN

Abaslom and Achitophel

Tags: John Dryden


There is a widespread notion in the public mind that poetic inspiration has something mysterious and translunar about it, something which altogether escapes human analysis, which it would be almost sacrilege for analysis to touch. The Romans spoke of the poet's divine afflatus, the Elizabethans of his fine frenzy. And even in our own day critics, and poets themselves, are not lacking who take the affair quite as seriously. Our critics and poets are themselves largely responsible for this -- they are a sentimental lot, even when most discerning, and cannot help indulging, on the one hand, in a reverential attitude toward the art, and, on the other, in a reverential attitude toward themselves.

CONRAD AIKEN

Scepticisms: Notes on Contemporary Poetry

Tags: Conrad Aiken


Poetry can be a really great outlet for kids and teens. There are so many rules when you're a teen, but writing poetry is totally open-ended. It's a great way for kids and teens to talk about their feelings and what's going on with no rules. Whatever comes out, comes out.

ELISSA DICKSON

"Elissa Dickson is new San Miguel County Poet Laureate", The Daily Planet, May 4, 2016


Poetry is pretty much everywhere: bubbling in the broken coffee machine, creeping through the cold-calls, boasting in the empty bank balance. Poetry is disconcerting and at best dangerous, lurking in that deep-stomach lurch when you lean too close to the platform edge.

JADE CUTTLE

"A plate of poetry, please: Is poetry more important than politics?", Varsity Online, May 3, 2016


Whenever I read a poem that moves me, I know I'm not alone in the world. I feel a connection to the person who wrote it, knowing that he or she has gone through something similar to what I've experienced, or felt something like what I have felt. And their poem gives me hope and courage, because I know that they survived, that their life force was strong enough to turn experience into words and shape it into meaning and then bring it toward me to share.

GREGORY ORR

All Things Considered, February 20, 2006

Tags: Gregory Orr


All poets pretend to write for immortality, but the whole tribe have no objection to present pay, and present praise.

CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Lacon

Tags: Charles Caleb Colton


Poets are almost always wrong about facts. That's because they are not really interested in facts: only in truth.

WILLIAM FAULKNER

"The Town"

Tags: William Faulkner