Poetry Quotes - Page 10

• We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race.

  Robin Williams

  Cute, Writing, Carpe Diem

  "Fictional character: John Keating". "Dead Poets Society", www.imdb.com. 1989.

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• Poetry, whose material is language, is perhaps the most human and least worldly of the arts, the one in which the end product remains closest to the thought that inspired it.

  Hannah Arendt

  Art, Language, Inspired

  Hannah Arendt, Susannah Young-ah Gottlieb (2007). “Reflections on Literature and Culture”, p.174, Stanford University Press

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• Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion.

  T. S. Eliot

  Personality, Individual Talent, Emotion

  The Sacred Wood "Tradition and the Individual Talent" (1920)

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• Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.

  T. S. Eliot

  Art, Writing, Reading Poetry

  The Sacred Wood "Philip Massinger" (1920)

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• I was a late bloomer. But anyone who blooms at all, ever, is very lucky.

  Sharon Olds

  Writing, Lucky, Self Actualization

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• To be wild is not to be crazy or psychotic. True wildness is a love of nature, a delight in silence, a voice free to say spontaneous things, and an exuberant curiosity in the face of the unknown.

  Robert Bly

  Nature, Crazy, Voice

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• Life is given to us, we earn it by giving it.

  Rabindranath Tagore

  Life, Kindness, Generosity

  Rabindranath Tagore, Mohit Kumar Ray (2007). “Poems”, p.403, Atlantic Publishers & Dist

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• The poet doesn't invent. He listens.

  Jean Cocteau

  Poetic, Invention, Poet

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• Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.

  Aristotle

  Philosophical, History, Historical

  "Poetics". Book by Aristotle, 1451b, 6, 335 BCE.

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• How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

  Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  Marriage, Sweet Love, Educational

  Sonnets from the Portuguese no. 43 (1850)

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• 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

  Beauty, World, Veils

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1994). “The Selected Poetry and Prose of Shelley”, p.52, Wordsworth Editions

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• A poem begins with a lump in the throat

  Robert Frost

  Inspirational, Writing, Grace

  Robert Frost, Mark Richardson (2007). “The Collected Prose of Robert Frost”, p.84, Harvard University Press

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• . . . it is through poetry that we give name to those ideas which are-until the poem-nameless and formless, about to be birthed, but already felt.

  Audre Lorde

  Names, Ideas, Giving

  Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.36, Crossing Press

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• Poetry is the exquisite expression of exquisite impressions.

  Philibert Joseph Roux

  Expression, Impression, Exquisite

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• All poets, all writers are political. They either maintain the status quo, or they say, 'Something's wrong, let's change it for the better.'

  Sonia Sanchez

  Political, Poet, Status Quo

  Sonia Sanchez, Joyce Ann Joyce (2007). “Conversations with Sonia Sanchez”, Univ Pr of Mississippi

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• What can be explained is not poetry.

  William Butler Yeats

  Life

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• Every healthy man can do without food for two days — but without poetry, never!

  Charles Baudelaire

  Food, Men, Two

  "Baudelaire as a literary critic".

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• A poem should not mean but be.

  Archibald MacLeish

  Mean, Should

  "Ars Poetica" l. 23 (1926)

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• Poetry is a search for syllables to shoot at the barriers of the unknown and the unknowable.

  Carl Sandburg

  Barriers, Syllables, Poet

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

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• Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away.

  Carl Sandburg

  Rainbow, Going Away, Scripts

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

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• When power corrupts, poetry cleanses

  John F. Kennedy

  Diversity, Arrogance, Power Corrupts

  Remarks upon receiving an honorary degree from Amherst College, Amherst, Mass., 26 Oct. 1963

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• My poetry has become the way of my giving out what music is within me.

  Countee Cullen

  Giving, Way, Music Is

  Countee Cullen, Gerald Lyn Early (1991). “My soul's high song: the collected writings of Countee Cullen, voice of the Harlem Renaissance”, Doubleday Books

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• All a poet can do today is warn.

  Wilfred Owen

  Warning, Today, Can Do

  Poems (1963 ed.) preface

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• The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.

  Jean Cocteau

  Liars, Lying, Speak

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• Breathe-in experience, breathe-out poetry.

  Muriel Rukeyser

  Poetic, Breathe

  Muriel Rukeyser (1994). “Out of Silence: Selected Poems”, p.1, Northwestern University Press

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