Poetry Quotes

"There are distinct duties of a poet laureate. I plan a reading series at the Library of Congress and advise the librarian. The rest is how I want to promote poetry"

Rita Dove, Poet

"In the past, poetry came in the form of spells and chants used to effect change"

John Barton, Poet

"I have experienced healing through other writers' poetry, but there's no way I can sit down to write in the hope a poem will have healing potential. If I do, I'll write a bad poem"

Marilyn Hacker, Poet

"Publishing the lyric books, poetry or comics of other musicians I know. That's the thing I really want to break into!"

Frank Iero, Musician

"If poetry should address itself to the same needs and aspirations, the same hopes and fears, to which the Bible addresses itself, it might rival it in distribution"

Wallace Stevens, Poet

"I try to show what it is about language and music that enthralls, because I think those are the two elements of poetry"

Rita Dove, Poet

"Freedom is poetry, taking liberties with words, breaking the rules of normal speech, violating common sense. Freedom is violence"

Norman O. Brown, Philosopher

"I'm perfectly happy when I look out at an audience and it's all women. I always think it's kind of odd, but then, more women than men, I think, read and write poetry"

Diane Wakoski, Poet

"I think that's what poetry does. It allows people to come together and identify with a common thing that is outside of themselves, but which they identify with from the interior"

Diane Wakoski, Poet

"But I am not political in the current events sense, and I have never wanted anyone to read my poetry that way"

Diane Wakoski, Poet

"I'm quite sure that most writers would sustain real poetry if they could, but it takes devotion and talent"

Marguerite Young, Author

"When you translate poetry in particular, you're obliged to look at how the writer with whom you're working puts together words, sentences, phrases, the triple tension between the line of verse, the syntax and the sentence"

Marilyn Hacker, Poet

"Well I guess the plan was to write poetry and publish books and make a living from writing poetry. That was a pretty ambitious plan I guess"

Robert Adamson, Philosopher

"I think when kids just see well-crafted poetry, it's just obtuse to them. It's hard to relate to"

Jewel Kilcher, Musician

"Poetry is simply the most beautiful, impressive, and widely effective mode of saying things"

Matthew Arnold, Poet

"There are better ways we can transform this virulent hatred - by living our ideals, the Peace Corps, exchange students, teachers, exporting our music, poetry, blue jeans"

Helen Thomas, Journalist

"Poetry is but another form of inquiry into the nature of phenomena, using with its own unique procedures and tools"

John Barton, Poet

"An experienced reader uses the poem as an agent of inquiry. This makes poetry very exciting, unstable, and interactive"

John Barton, Poet

"I don't like political poetry, and I don't write it. If this question was pointing towards that, I think it is missing the point of the American tradition, which is always apolitical, even when the poetry comes out of politically active writers"

Diane Wakoski, Poet

"American poetry, like American painting, is always personal with an emphasis on the individuality of the poet"

Diane Wakoski, Poet

"In my opinion, the most significant works of the twentieth century are those that rise beyond the conceptual tyranny of genre; they are, at the same time, poetry, criticism, narrative, drama, etc"

Juan Goytisolo, Poet

"If poetry alters the way in which the reader views the world, then it has had its desired effect"

John Barton, Poet

"I have always wanted what I have now come to call the voice of personal narrative. That has always been the appealing voice in poetry. It started for me lyrically in Shakespeare's sonnets"

Diane Wakoski, Poet

"But I don't think that poetry is a good, to use a contemporary word, venue, for current events"

Diane Wakoski, Poet

"Well - I started writing - probably in the early 60s and by say '65-'66 I had read most of the poetry that had been published - certainly in the 20 years prior to that"

Robert Adamson, Philosopher

"I think I'm a very good reader of poetry, but obviously, like everybody, I have a set of criteria for reading poems, and I'm not shy about presenting them, so if people ask for my critical response to a poem, I tell them what works and why, and what doesn't work and why"

Diane Wakoski, Poet

"Distinctly American poetry is usually written in the context of one's geographic landscape, sometimes out of one's cultural myths, and often with reference to gender and race or ethnic origins"

Diane Wakoski, Poet

"In Australia, not reading poetry is the national pastime"

Phyllis McGinley, Author

"I always liked the magic of poetry but now I'm just starting to see behind the curtain of even the best poets, how they've used, tried and tested craft to create the illusion. Wonderful feeling of exhilaration to finally be there"

David Knopfler, Musician

"The trouble with us in America isn't that the poetry of life has turned to prose, but that it has turned to advertising copy"

Louis Kronenberger, Critic

"PC stuff just lowers the general acceptance of good work and replaces it with bogus poetry that celebrates values that in themselves are probably quite worthy"

Diane Wakoski, Poet

"I definitely wish to distinguish American poetry from British or other English language poetry"

Diane Wakoski, Poet

"From reading a previous answer, you know that I consider all those aspects to be part of American cultural myth and thus they figure into good American poetry, whether the poet is aware of what he is doing or not"

Diane Wakoski, Poet

"Poetry is the art of creating imaginary gardens with real toads"

Marianne Moore, Poet

"Poetry is the utterance of deep and heart-felt truth - the true poet is very near the oracle"

Edwin Hubbel Chapin, Clergyman

"None but a poet can write a tragedy. For tragedy is nothing less than pain transmuted into exaltation by the alchemy of poetry"

Edith Hamilton, Writer

"If you go into a bar in most places in America and even say the word poetry, you'll probably get beaten up. But poetry is a really strong, beautiful form to me, and a lot of innovation in language comes from poetry"

Jim Jarmusch, Director

"Poetry is all nouns and verbs"

Marianne Moore, Poet

"Humour is a fine line to walk in poetry, as in fiction. I just think it's harder to write. It's harder to keep the respect of the reader too"

George Murray, Poet

"Even the people who have had success and made money writing these books of fiction seem to feel the need to pretend it's no big deal, or part of a natural progression from poetry to fiction, but often it's really just about the money, the perceived prestige"

George Murray, Poet

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