Poetry Is Quotes - Page 33

• Whoever lives for poetry must read everything. How often has the light of a new idea sprung for me from a simple brochure! When one allows himself to be animated by new images, he discovers iridescence in the images of old books. Poetic ages unite in a living memory. The new age awakens the old. The old age comes to live again in the new. Poetry is never as unified as when it diversifies.

  Gaston Bachelard

  Memories, Book, Simple

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• I was reading the poems of Rochester. Rochester made himself out to be bisexual, but I think that was only to shock. Most of his poetry is sexual, even pornographic.

  Thom Gunn

  Book, Reading, Bisexual

  Thom Gunn (2017). “Selected Poems of Thom Gunn”, p.177, Faber & Faber

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• My feeling is that poetry is also a healing process, and then when a person tries to write poetry with depth or beauty, he will find himself guided along paths which will heal him, and this is more important, actually, than any of the poetry he writes.

  Robert Bly

  Healing, Writing, Feelings

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• The point of poetry is to be acutely discomforting, to prod and provoke, to poke us in the eye, to punch us in the nose, to knock us off our feet, to take our breath away.

  Paul Muldoon

  Eye, Feet, Noses

  Princeton University Library Chronicle, Spring 1998.

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• Poetry is a kind of ingenious nonsense.

  Isaac Newton

  Kind, Nonsense, Ingenious

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• Poetry is the gate through which I enter the land of enchantment. Once inside the flaming wall, my limitations fall from me, and my spirit is free.

  Helen Keller

  Wall, Fall, Land

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• Poetry is, above all, a singing art of natural and magical connection because, though it is born out of one's person's solitude, it has the ability to reach out and touch in a humane and warmly illuminating way the solitude, even the loneliness, of others. That is why, to me, poetry is one of the most vital treasures that humanity possesses; it is a bridge between separated souls.

  Brendan Kennelly

  Art, Loneliness, Bridges

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• For women, then, poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence.

  Audre Lorde

  Luxury, Existence

  Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.37, Crossing Press

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• One of the deep fundamentals of poetry is the recurrence of sounds, syllables, words, phrases, lines, and stanzas. Repetition can be one of the most intoxicating features of poetry. It creates expectations, which can be fulfilled or frustrated. It can create a sense of boredom and complacency, but it can also incite enchantment and inspire bliss.

  Edward Hirsch

  Expectations, Boredom, Inspire

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• Poetry is a reaching out forward expression, an effort to find fulfillment

  Robert Frost

  Expression, Effort, Reaching

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• All the old bindings are broken. Cosmological centers now are anywhere and everywhere. The earth is a heavenly body, most beautiful of all, and all poetry is now archaic that fails to match the wonder of this view.

  Joseph Campbell

  Beautiful, Views, Broken

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• Poetry is what is gained in translation.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Translations

  "Raw Material by Derek Mahon - review" by Aingeal Clare, www.theguardian.com. February 3, 2012.

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• Poetry is a series of explanations of life, fading off into horizons too swift for explanations.

  Carl Sandburg

  Horizon, Fading, Explanation

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

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• Poetry is not truth, it is the resurrection of presences.

  Octavio Paz

  Resurrection

  Octavio Paz, Eliot Weinberger, G. Aroul (1984). “Selected Poems”, p.118, New Directions Publishing

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• The purpose of poetry is to make life complete in itself.

  Wallace Stevens

  Poetry, Purpose

  Wallace Stevens (2011). “Opus Posthumous: Poems, Plays, Prose”, p.243, Vintage

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• Poetry is a means of redemption.

  Wallace Stevens

  Mean, Poetry, Redemption

  1957 Opus Posthumous, Aphorisms,'Adagia'.

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• Poetry is a peerless proficiency of the imagination.

  Marianne Moore

  Imagination, Poetry, Proficiency

  Marianne Moore, Patricia C. Willis (1986). “The complete prose of Marianne Moore”, Viking Pr

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• I don't think any poetry is written that isn't primarily written to the self, in a way... I'm always talking to myself. But I seem to want somebody else to listen to it. I need, I do want an audience. So it's a strange thing. It's a very private conversation that then, you make public, kind of, like, the starfish flipping its stomach out.

  Kay Ryan

  Thinking, Self, Talking

  "ArtWorks" with Jo Reed, www.arts.gov.

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• I have long admired Ron Whitehead. He is crazy as nine loons, and his poetry is a dazzling mix of folk wisdom and pure mathematics

  Hunter S. Thompson

  Crazy, Long, Nine

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• As to London we must console ourselves with the thought that if life outside is less poetic than it was in the days of old, inwardly its poetry is much deeper.

  Goldwin Smith

  London, Poetic, Deeper

  Goldwin Smith (1881). “Lectures and Essays”, New York : Macmillan

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• Any long work in which poetry is persistent, be it epic or drama or narrative, is really a succession of separate poetic experiences governed into a related whole by an energy distinct from that which evoked them.

  John Drinkwater

  Drama, Epic, Long

  John Drinkwater (1922). “The Lyric: An Essay”, p.25, Library of Alexandria

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• All poetry is difficult to read - The sense of it anyhow.

  Robert Browning

  Poetry, Difficult, Difficulty

  Robert Browning (1956). “Poems”, Boston

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• I'm not really quiet or shy. Ask any of my friends! But I always ground my poetry in life itself. Poetry is an art of language, though, so I am always aware of every word's meaning, or multiple meanings.

  Anne Stevenson

  Friends, Art, Shy

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• It is part of my creed that the only poetry is history, could we tell it right.

  Thomas Carlyle

  History, Creeds

  Thomas Carlyle (2007). “The French Revolution: A History”, p.17, Modern Library

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• Poetry is the statement of a relation between a man and the world

  Wallace Stevens

  Inspiration, Men, World

  Wallace Stevens (1997). “Collected Poetry and Prose”

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