POETRY QUOTES III

quotations about poetry

Poetry is Life's wild song.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN FIELD

"Poetry"

Tags: Benjamin Franklin Field


'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


You'll find yourself going back to certain poems again and again. After all, they are only words on a page, but you go back because something that really matters to you is evoked in you by the words. And if somebody said to you, Well, what is it? or What do your favorite poems mean?, you may well be able to answer it, if you've been educated in a certain way, but I think you'll feel the gap between what you are able to say and why you go on reading.

ADAM PHILLIPS

The Paris Review, spring 2014

Tags: Adam Phillips


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


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


The crown of literature is poetry.

MATTHEW ARNOLD

Essays in Criticism, Second Series

Tags: Matthew Arnold


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


You speak
As one who fed on poetry.

EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON

Richelieu

Tags: Edward Bulwer Lytton


The grand style arises in poetry, when a noble nature, poetically gifted, treats with simplicity or with severity a serious subject.

MATTHEW ARNOLD

On Translating Homer

Tags: Matthew Arnold


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


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


When people say that poetry is merely a luxury for the educated middle classes, or that it shouldn't be read much at school because it is irrelevant, or any of the strange and stupid things that are said about poetry and its place in our lives, I suspect that the people doing the saying have had things pretty easy. A tough life needs a tough language -- and that is what poetry is. That is what literature offers -- a language powerful enough to say how it is.

JEANETTE WINTERSON

The Guardian, November 14, 2008

Tags: Jeanette Winterson


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


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

HORACE

Ars Poetica

Tags: Horace


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


We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry.

WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

"Anima Hominis", Per Amica Silentia Lunae

Tags: William Butler Yeats


For verses and poems I can turn to true food.

ST. AUGUSTINE

Confessions

Tags: St. Augustine


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


A lot of being a poet consists of willed ignorance. If you woke up from your trance and realized the nature of the life-threatening and dignity-destroying precipice you were walking along, you would switch into actuarial sciences immediately.

MARGARET ATWOOD

On Writing Poetry

Tags: Margaret Atwood


Poetry is God's work.

KATY LEDERER

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

Tags: Katy Lederer