POETRY QUOTES III

quotations about poetry

I think that's the guts of what poetry is about -- feeling, whether it's something nostalgic, or something fearful, or anxiety-producing, or mourning a loss, many different things. It's the feeling of it.

LUKE ANDERSON

"A place for poetry", Echo Press, May 4, 2016


'Tis true among fields and woods I sing,
Aloof from cities--that my poor strains
Were born, like the simple flowers you bring,
In English meadows and English lanes.

ALFRED AUSTIN

prelude, Soliloquies in Song

Tags: Alfred Austin


Poetry, far more than fiction, reveals the soul of humanity.

AMY LOWELL

preface, Tendencies in Modern Poetry

Tags: Amy Lowell


Such is the role of poetry. It unveils, in the strict sense of the word. It lays bare, under a light which shakes off torpor, the surprising things which surround us and which our senses record mechanically.

JEAN COCTEAU

"Le Secret Professionnel", A Call to Order

Tags: Jean Cocteau


None knows the reason why this curse
Was sent on him, this love of making verse.

HORACE

Ars Poetica

Tags: Horace


So what rhyming poems do is they take all these nearby sound curves and remind you that they first existed that way in your brain. Before they meant something specific, they had a shape and a way of being said. And now, yes, gloom and broom are floating fifty miles away from each other in you mind because they refer to different notions, but they're cheek-by-jowl as far as your tongue is concerned.

NICHOLSON BAKER

The Anthologist

Tags: Nicholson Baker


Poetry must be simple, sensuous, or impassioned.

EMMA LAZARUS

"Critic and Poet: An Apologue"

Tags: Emma Lazarus


Some poems are like the Centaurs--a mingling of man and beast, and begotten of Ixion on a cloud.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

Table-Talk

Tags: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


The crown of literature is poetry.

MATTHEW ARNOLD

Essays in Criticism, Second Series

Tags: Matthew Arnold


Poetry is God's work.

KATY LEDERER

"An Interview with Katy Lederer", Thermos Magazine, January 21, 2010

Tags: Katy Lederer


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


You speak
As one who fed on poetry.

EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON

Richelieu

Tags: Edward Bulwer Lytton


When an exquisite poem brings one's eyes to the point of tears, those tears are not evidence of an excess of joy, they are witness far more to an exacerbated melancholy, a disposition of the nerves, a nature exiled among imperfect things, which would like to possess, without delay, a paradise revealed on this very same earth.

CHARLES BAUDELAIRE

"Notes nouvelles sur Edgar Poe III", L'art romantique

Tags: Charles Baudelaire


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

A Defence of Poetry

Tags: Percy Bysshe Shelley


True poetry is not of earth,
'T is more of Heaven by its birth.

WILLIAM BATCHELDER GREENE

"Parnassus", Cloudrifts at Twilight

Tags: William Batchelder Greene


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


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


A poet's work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep.

SALMAN RUSHDIE

London Independent, February 18, 1989

Tags: Salman Rushdie


Poetry can repair no loss, but it defies the space which separates. And it does this by its continual labor of reassembling what has been scattered.

JOHN BERGER

And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos

Tags: John Berger


For verses and poems I can turn to true food.

ST. AUGUSTINE

Confessions

Tags: St. Augustine