Poetry says in twenty words what prose takes two hundred to approximate. These quotes explore the craft, the beauty, and the necessity of verse — from poets who live for it and readers who are grateful they do.
“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.”
“When you're going through something, whether it's a wonderful thing like having a child or a sad thing like losing somebody, you often feel like 'Oh my God, I'm so overwhelmed I'm dealing with this huge thing on my own.' In fact, poetry's a nice reminder that, no, everybody goes through it. These are universal experiences.”
“We recognise in the finished art, which is the result of these conditions, the best words in the best order - poetry and to put this essential poetry into different classes is impossible.”
“I've written poetry since I was in the first grade, and it wasn't until I was a little bit older that I realized poetry could be put to music and become a song.”
“Children and lunatics cut the Gordian knot which the poet spends his life patiently trying to untie.”
“You will not find poetry anywhere unless you bring some of it with you.”
“There may be more poetry than justice in poetic justice.”
“The poet doesn't invent. He listens.”
“I don't think you get to good writing unless you expose yourself and your feelings. Deep songs don't come from the surface they come from the deep down. The poetry and the songs that you are suppose to write, I believe are in your heart.”
“If my poetry aims to achieve anything, it's to deliver people from the limited ways in which they see and feel.”
“And yet, in a culture like ours, which is given to material comforts, and addicted to forms of entertainment that offer immediate gratification, it is surprising that so much poetry is written.”
“From what the moderns want, we must learn what poetry should become from what the ancients did, what poetry must be.”
“Art: If the object of poetry is, to make men, then poetry is the heir of prophecy.”
“When truth has no burning, then it is philosophy, when it gets burning from the heart, it becomes poetry.”
“Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.”
“I don't think the creative writing industry has helped American poetry.”