Poetry Is Quotes - Page 29

• Poetry is the harnessing of the paradox of earth cradling life and then entombing it.

  Carl Sandburg

  Earth, Paradox

  Carl Sandburg (2015). “Harvest Poems: 1910-1960”, p.77, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Poetry is a fresh morning spider-web telling a story of moonlit hours of weaving and waiting during a night.

  Carl Sandburg

  Morning, Night, Waiting

  Carl Sandburg (2003). “The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg”, p.318, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Poetry is statement of a series of equations, with numbers and symbols changing like the changes of mirrors, pools, skies, the only never-changing sign being the sign of infinity.

  Carl Sandburg

  Mirrors, Sky, Numbers

  Carl Sandburg (2003). “The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg”, p.318, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Poetry is a section of river-fog and moving boat-lights, delivered between bridges and whistles, so one says, 'Oh!' and another, 'How?'

  Carl Sandburg

  Moving, Light, Fog

  Carl Sandburg (2003). “The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg”, p.319, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Poetry is a kinetic arrangement of static syllables.

  Carl Sandburg

  Static, Arrangements, Syllables

  Carl Sandburg (2003). “The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg”, p.319, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Poetry is the arithmetic of the easiest way and the primrose path, matched up with foam-flanked horses, bloody knuckles, and bones, on the hard ways to the stars.

  Carl Sandburg

  Horse, Stars, Foam

  Carl Sandburg (2003). “The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg”, p.319, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Poetry is a shuffling of boxes of illusions buckled with a strap of facts.

  Carl Sandburg

  Facts, Illusion, Shuffling

  Carl Sandburg (2003). “The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg”, p.319, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Poetry is an enumeration of birds, bees, babies, butterflies, bugs, bambinos, babayagas, and bipeds, beating their way up bewildering bastions.

  Carl Sandburg

  Baby, Butterfly, Bird

  Carl Sandburg (1928). “Smoke and steel: Slabs of the sunburnt West. Good morning, America”, Harcourt, Brace and World

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• Poetry is the establishment of a metaphorical link between white butterfly-wings and the scraps of torn-up love-letters.

  Carl Sandburg

  Butterfly, Wings, White

  Carl Sandburg (2003). “The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg”, p.319, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Poetry is a mystic, sensuous mathematics of fire, smoke-stacks, waffles, pansies, people, and purple sunsets.

  Carl Sandburg

  Sunset, Fire, Purple

  Carl Sandburg (2003). “The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg”, p.319, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Poetry is the capture of a picture, a song, or a flair, in a deliberate prism of words.

  Carl Sandburg

  Song, Flair, Capture

  Carl Sandburg (2015). “Harvest Poems: 1910-1960”, p.77, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I know there's some poetry that sort of sounds like daisies, but most of the good poetry is also [political], you can feel the heartbeat; it's about some situation that concerns human beings under duress. It's suggesting a solution, or just acknowledging that [the situation] exists. Art does that.

  Toni Morrison

  Art, Political, Duress

  Source: theharvardadvocate.com

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• To me, poetry is a recreation, a renewal of language... The subtlety of what words mean and the fact that you write something and all of a sudden you'll realize that "yes, it reaches out. It meant that, too." Then all of a sudden you'll get a rhyme and the rhyme will throw up a whole new way of looking at things. It's this relationship that you never dreamed of.

  Mary Ann Hoberman

  Writing, Mean, Way

  Source: www.teachingbooks.net

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• Poetry is another space, like love, where we extend that extra credit to the writer.

  Elif Batuman

  Like Love, Space, Credit

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• When poets die, other poets take it personally, almost as an affront. A lot of us "left behind" are thinking that poetry is the one thing keeping us alive and present, so what does it mean when one of our ranks chooses to end his or her life? There's an anger beneath the grief, you know? That anger and grief, in turn, breeds other poems from those of us left behind.

  Allison Joseph

  Grief, Mean, Thinking

  Source: atticusreview.org

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• Poetry is such an ancient art, and I consider myself young within that art.

  Allison Joseph

  Art, Ancient, Young

  Source: lunchticket.org

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• My feeling is that most political poetry is preaching to the choir, and that the people who are going to make the political changes in our lives are not the people who read poetry, unfortunately. Poetry not specifically aimed at political revolution, though, is beneficial in moving people toward that kind of action, as well as other kinds of action. A good poem makes me want to be active on as many fronts as possible.

  John Ashbery

  Moving, Political Revolution, People

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• When I think of someone equating poems and machines, it makes me feel like that person would like poems to have a more obvious use value in society. They're not happy with poetry being this ephemeral, indefinable thing. They want it to be "real."

  Elaine Equi

  Real, Thinking, Machines

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• A trouble with poetry is the presence of presumptuousness in poetry, the sense you get in a poem that the poet takes for granted an interest on the reader's part in the poet's autobiographical life, in the poet's memories, problems, difficulties and even minor perceptions. I try to presume that no one is interested in me. And I think experience bears that out. No one's interested in the experiences of a stranger - let's put it that way. And then you have difficulty combined with presumptuousness, which is the most dire trouble with poetry.

  Billy Collins

  Memories, Thinking, Perception

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• I think clarity is the real risk in poetry because you are exposed. You're out in the open field. You're actually saying things that are comprehensible, and it's easy to criticize something you can understand.

  Billy Collins

  Real, Thinking, Risk

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• Someone said, in a simplistic way maybe, that all American poetry is either cooked or raw, and if it's cooked, it comes from Poe.

  Frederic Tuten

  Way, Said, American Poetry

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• Almost everything that's happened in my poetry is what you might call organic. I don't do much preconceiving. The only consistent plan I've ever had is to try to break my patterns, my habits, my kneejerk tendencies in writing. If I start to sound too much like the Ron Padgett that I've read before, I stop myself. I don't want to get locked perpetually in a mode or a level of diction or a stylistic vein - what is called a poetic voice.

  Ron Padgett

  Writing, Trying, Poetic

  Source: www.raintaxi.com

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• It seems more than likely that the translating of poetry is going to rub off on the translator if he or she is a poet.

  Ron Padgett

  Poet, Translate, Translators

  Source: www.raintaxi.com

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• Confessionalism relates to writers of color. I think confessional poetry is in its way very Catholic, capital C. One of the formative ideas of Confessionalism, beyond psychoanalysis, is a very actual fall from grace. And, at least in America, people of color never occupy that position of grace the way that white people do. So I think that in some very actual ways the confessional mode, strictly speaking, is not possible for non-white writers.

  Shane McCrae

  Fall, Thinking, People

  Source: therumpus.net

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• I've stood in long lines, in the rain and under the sun, just to buy a pack of butter or a box of paper napkins. I've seen mothers running after the corpses of their martyred sons, oblivious to whether their headscarves or their chadors or their stockings and shoes were slipping off or not. I won't say any more. In the light of all this, how did you expect my poetry to be joyful or, as in my recent poem, to speak of love? Even so, more than half of my poetry is joyful and these are the products of the moments when I've felt happy.

  Simin Behbahani

  Mother, Running, Rain

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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