Lyric Poetry Quotes

• And gentle winds and waters near, make music to the lonely ear.

  Lord Byron

  Lonely, Wind, Water

  Lord Byron (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Lord Byron (Illustrated)”, p.948, Delphi Classics

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• 

  When you're happy you enjoy the music, but when you're sad you understand the lyrics.

  Frank Ocean

  Happiness, Sad, Happy

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• How many times do I love, again?
  Tell me how many beads there are
  In a silver chain
  Of evening rain
  Unravelled from the trembling main
  And threading the eye of a yellow star:-
  So many times do I love again.

  Thomas Lovell Beddoes

  Love, Life, Valentines Day

  Thomas Lovell Beddoes, “Song From Torrismond”

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• Will you love me in December as you do in May,
  Will you love me in the good old fashioned way?
  When my hair has all turned gray,
  Will you kiss me then and say,
  That you love me in December as you do in May?

  Jimmy Walker

  Love, Sexy, Kissing

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• I have so much of you in my heart.

  John Keats

  Love, Romantic, Heart

  John Keats (2009). “Selected Letters of John Keats: Revised Edition”, p.313, Harvard University Press

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• We loved with a love that was more than love.

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Love, Marriage, Valentines Day

  "Annabel Lee" l. 7 (1849)

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• When you write a song, most of the words you use are in black and white, and then, from time to time, you use one that’s in color. These words in color are a part of ourselves, because we give them a meaning. If you like, we give them a third dimension.

  Jacques Brel

  Song, Writing, Black And White

  "Nous les artistes: Jacques Brel". www.imdb.com. 1979.

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• I have a high art, I hurt with cruelty those who would damage me.

  Archilochus

  Art, Hurt, Warrior

  "Quotations for Martial Artists : Hundreds of Inspirational Quotes to Motivate and Enlighten the Modern Warrior". Book edited by John D. Moore, 2003.

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• Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
  Is hung with bloom along the bough.

  A. E. Housman

  Love, Spring, Tree

  A Shropshire Lad no. 2, l. 1 (1896)

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• Don't call my lyrics poetry. It's an insult to real poets.

  Bernie Taupin

  Real, Insult, Poet

  "Bernie Taupin: What I've Learned" by Cal Fussman, www.esquire.com. January 2, 2012.

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• In fact, in lyric poetry, truthfulness becomes recognizable as a ring of truth within the medium itself.

  Seamus Heaney

  Facts, Truthfulness, Mediums

  Seamus Heaney (2014). “Opened Ground: Selected Poems, 1966-1996”, p.429, Macmillan

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• Paraphrase, in the sense of summary, is as indispensable to the novel-critic as close analysis is to the critic of lyric poetry. The natural deduction is that novels are paraphrasable whereas poems are not. But this is a false deduction because close analysis is itself a disguised form of paraphrase.

  David Lodge

  Analysis, Literature, Natural

  David Lodge (2002). “Language of Fiction: Essays in Criticism and Verbal Analysis of the English Novel”, p.37, Psychology Press

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• We'd like to just write nothing but lyric poetry. The trouble is, the individual is going along intent on his own personal gratifications and love affairs and financial affairs and everything else. But loping alongside him is this fascist lout who keeps trying to take over. And if you keep ignoring him, he gets bigger and bigger, so every once in a while the free individual has to turn away from his private pursuits and give this fascist lout a few clouts, and beat him down to size.

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti

  Writing, Giving, Trying

  Interview with Christopher Bollen, www.interviewmagazine.com. December 1, 2012.

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• We have certain rules for traditional lyric poetry in Korea. I twist my body, confused by what to say and how to act, facing these rules. Confronting traditional lyricism, I speak with a bare body without the tattoos of culture on it.

  Kim Hyesoon

  Tattoo, Confused, Korea

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• Speaking of people I had to exclude: Hank Williams. which is to say, songs are part of lyric poetry in my book, my thinking. In fact they are the urgent element of poetry in our time, they carry the most emotion for the most people in our culture. everyone LOVES poetry, because we all love (one form or another) of rock and roll (be it folk to emo to rap). It's all rock and roll and all lyric poetry.

  Gregory Orr

  Song, Emo, Book

  Source: therumpus.net

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• I have the idea that lyric poetry is a poetry that's driven by a sense of the presence of death. That there's something unbearable about the fact that we're going to die and that we can't stand it and I think you find that out in childhood and you don't really - at least I found it out in childhood and I found it hard to get over.

  Edward Hirsch

  Thinking, Ideas, Childhood

  "A Poet Is Born". Big Think interview, bigthink.com.

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• No one can threaten poetry. It's always been there, always will be. Humans need it to live: it has sustaining powers. How could we (anyone) get through adolescence without some form of song? Song is only a version of lyric poetry that is carried more by melody than by internal coherence and unity. but lyric and song - they are the same.

  Gregory Orr

  Song, Unity, Coherence

  Source: therumpus.net

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• Most songs have bridges in them, to distract listeners from the main verses of a song so they don't get bored. My songs don't have a lot of bridges because lyric poetry never had them.

  Bob Dylan

  Song, Bridges, Bored

  "Bob Dylan: 'Passion is a young man's game, older people gotta be wise'". Interview with Robert Love, www.independent.co.uk. February 7, 2015.

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• There is a wonderful Hungarian literature, especially in lyric poetry.

  Gyorgy Ligeti

  Literature, Wonderful, Hungarians

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• The kind of poetry I write, lyric poetry, I think is really concerned with intimacy, with mystery. That needn't be religious mystery, there are mysteries to do with everyday life.

  Kevin Hart

  Religious, Writing, Thinking

  "The Poetry and Prayers of Kevin Hart". "Encounter" with Carmel Howard, www.abc.net.au. June 5, 2011.

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• I am convinced that the first lyric poem was written at night, and that the moon was witness to the event and that the event was witness to the moon. For me, the moon has always been the very embodiment of lyric poetry.

  Mary Ruefle

  Night, Moon, Embodiment

  Mary Ruefle (2012). “Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures”, p.12, Wave Books

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• It is no longer possible for lyric poetry to express the immensity of our experience. Life has grown too cumbersome, too complicated. We have acquired values which are best expressed in prose.

  Boris Pasternak

  Complicated, Immensity, Prose

  Boris Leonidovich Pasternak (1976). “My sister, life and other poems”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt P

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• Lyric poetry is, of course, musical in origin. I do know that what happened to poetry in the twentieth century was that it began to be written for the page. When it's a question of typography, why not? Poets have done beautiful things with typography - Apollinaire's 'Calligrammes,' that sort of thing.

  James Fenton

  Beautiful, Musical, Why Not

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• There's no difference between lyrics and poetry. Words are words. The only difference is the people who are in academic positions and call themselves poets and have an academic stance. They've got something to lose if they say it's all poetry; if there's not music to it, and you have to wear a certain kind of checkered shirt or something like that. It's all the same. Lyrics are lyrics, poetry is poetry, lyrics are poetry, and poetry is lyrics. They are interchangeable to me.

  Van Morrison

  Differences, People, Kind

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• Music straightjackets a poem and prevents it from breathing on its own, whereas it liberates a lyric. Poetry doesn't need music; lyrics do.

  Stephen Sondheim

  Breathing, Needs

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