Constraint Poetry Quotes

Oulipo does not "explain" poetry, Ouilpo tries to find constraints for new kinds of poems. Oulipo is not into theory, it is a place of creation. ~ Paul Fournel

I see no reason for calling my work poetry except that there is no other category in which to put it. ~ Marianne Moore

Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia. ~ E.L. Doctorow

The best figurative poetry speaks not to the frivolous intellect, but (if anything does) straight to the heart; and does it better than plain prose. There seems then to be something which is better said with metaphor than without, which goes straighter to its mark by going crooked, and hits its aim exactly by flying off at tangents. ~ Austin Farrer

Poetry, for me, is the answer to, 'How does one stay sane when private lives are being ransacked by public events?' It's something that hangs over your head all the time. ~ Lisel Mueller

Look deeper through the telescope
and do not be afraid when the stars
collide towards the darkness,
because sometimes the most beautiful
things begin in chaos. ~ Robert M. Drake

Poetry is composing for the breath. ~ Peter Davison

You are the one
I am lit for.
Come with your rod
that twists
and is a serpent.
I am the bush.
I am burning
I am not consumed. ~ Lucille Clifton

you need to be careful with me.

i fall in love
and i fall in love forever. ~ AVA.

I have hunger for your mouth, for your voice, for your hair ~ Pablo Neruda

I never have time to write anymore. And when I do I only write about how I never have time. It's work and it's money and I've written more lists than songs lately. I stay up all night to do all these things I need to do, be all these things I want to be, playing with shadows in the darkness that shouldn't be able to exist. Empty bottles and cigarettes while watching the sunrise, why do I complain? I have it all, everything I ever asked for. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

How can the confessor teach/ those who are lost and sick at heart,/ when he himself, among the sinners,/ is worst, and most forsaken?/ It is only a game we play/ with other people's sins./ Besides, everyone knows/ that everyone lies confessing. ~ Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Cat's waiting is a kind of love. ~ Jie Zhang

POETRY HAS A PEPTIC PRESENCE. PRESENTLY. ~ Amy King

In that house I built
a bonfire that illuminated
the fecund earth around it.
And in that split-level
my friend Tommy, only eight
teeth left in his whole head,
dug a huge illegal grave
to bury his father's packhorse.
He marched that sumpter
into the dark study
and shot its head on the left
so it would fall right.
That night, as if to argue
with the day,
Karen and I made love
on the front lawn of the mansion
one cul-de-sac down,
four feet away
from what would be
a window cracked
open to allow the outside
in. ~ B.J. Ward

But I being fond of true philosophy,
Say very often to myself, 'Alas!
All things that have been born were born to die,
And flesh (which Death mows down to hay) is grass;
You've pass'd your youth not so unpleasantly,
And if you had it o'er again - 't would pass -
So thank your stars that matters are no worse,
And read your Bible, sir, and mind your purse. ~ Lord Byron

I never wrote poetry, just prose. I don't really consider songwriting a form of poetry either. The words are important, of course, but they're dependent on the music. ~ Michael Gira

Do not look too far for you will see nothing. ~ Dejan Stojanovic

In literature, questions of fact or truth are subordinated to the primary literary aims of producing a structure of words for its own sake, and the sign-values of symbols are subordinated to their importance as a structure of interconnected motifs. ~ Northrop Frye

Poetry is a natural energy resource of our country. It has no energy crisis, possessing a potential that will last as long as the country. Its power is equal to that of any country in the world. ~ Richard Eberhart

You play me with your jazz & leave me with the blues. ~ Curtis Tyrone Jones

The rain always reminds me of our kisses. ~ Avijeet Das

He that is thy friend indeed,
He will help thee in thy need:
If thou sorrow, he will weep;
If thou wake, he cannot sleep:
Thus of every grief in heart
He with thee doth bear a part.
These are certain signs to know
Faithful friend from flattering foe. ~ William Shakespeare

We spent the dark nights together
But now
Even in the light
My heart and heartbeats are disconnected
How can I express my sorrow
That is invisible to her eyes ~ Jyoti Patel

In the dark I rest,
unready for the light which dawns
day after day,
eager to be shared.
Black silk, shelter me.
I need
more of the night before I open
eyes and heart
to illumination. I must still
grow in the dark like a root
not ready, not ready at all. ~ Denise Levertov

They way I walk now
you'd have a hard time recognising me,
on these streets
where I once imagined walking with you.
Hand in hand,
like we always did,
and it never mattered where we were going
because it was all just fine.
I was always fine.
But they rest restlessly in my pockets now,
in a new town,
on these new streets,
and it's heavy to stay standing
for my body is half the size
when you're gone
and these buildings are tall and old and beautiful
and I wonder what secrets they hold.
How to stand so proud after so many years
because I'm still young but I feel worn
and I get through the days on too much caffeine and mood altering chemicals
to stay awake long enough to make the poetry come alive.
I fall asleep on the floor with the music still playing
when my neighbour leaves for the office
and I'm jealous.
I wonder what it's like to go outside and know where to go,
know where you want to end up
and just simply go there.
I've been making lists of things I want to do,
where to go
and who to be,
now that you're gone,
and it's nice and all,
it's just …
I'd rather write it with you,
and go there with you.
Be things
with you.

There were days when I still put on make up
in case you'd come back,
but I wear the same clothes and shower in the rain,
eat when I can and sleep when I can ~ Charlotte Eriksson

Now all that is left of education for me, Is to read and write your name, Those blank pages invite me evermore, To fill them over and over, With your memories that ever grows… ~ Piyush Rohankar

This choreography of ruin, the world breaking
like glass under a microscope,
the way it doesn't crack all at once,
but spreads out from the damaged cavities.
Still for a moment it all recedes.
The backyard potatoes swell quietly
buried beneath their canopy of leaves.
The wind rubs its hands through the trees. ~ Ellen Bass

I will greet you with a mouth full of barbed wire until you learn to stop coming after me with your hands. ~ Trista Mateer

...Where we, even where we mean
To mend her we end her,
When we hew or delve:
After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.
Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve
Strokes of havoc únselve
The sweet especial scene,
Rural scene, a rural scene,
Sweet especial rural scene. ~ Gerard Manley Hopkins

Nothing is stranger, more delicate, than the relationship between people who know each other only by sight - who encounter and observe each other daily, even hourly, and yet are compelled by the constraint of convention or by their own temperament to keep up the pretense of being indifferent strangers, neither greeting nor speaking to each other. Between them is uneasiness and overstimulated curiosity, the nervous excitement of an unsatisfied, unnaturally suppressed need to know and to communicate; and above all, too, a kind of strained respect. For man loves and respects his fellow man for as long as he is not yet in a position to evaluate him, and desire is born of defective knowledge. It ~ Thomas Mann

But it is the province of religion, of philosophy, of pure poetry only, to go beyond life, beyond time, into eternity. ~ Alfred De Vigny

Poetry is the way that we transcend language through language. And thus our freedom lies in the poetry of all things ~ Ilyas Kassam

Some days I find comfort in your silence
It drinks my tears and plants stars
In the dark depths of my dreams ~ Mona Soorma

Each form is inadequate, like a graft to be rejected by its intractable and unrelenting host and thus can only serve a brief and momentary purpose coherent to a context rooted in contiguous reason. This unbridled brash Spirit is, to itself, burdensome, yet dynamic, for it sees no flaw in working within the confines of a closed system to achieve ends that extend beyond it. This Spirit is, in fact, self-deceptive for to achieve such ends, it becomes necessary to bound manipulable fragments of the Self with a twine by which these parts can be joined indissolubly and maneuvered adroitly with the skill of a marionettist. ~ Ashim Shanker

Poetry is to be found nowhere unless we carry it within us. ~ Joseph Joubert

I know many lives worth living. ~ Mary Oliver

3:29:50 pm

what is it that you love about him
is it the way he lets you down
incapable of lifting you up

is it the way your heart breaks
when he says something
that shatters your self-esteem

is it the fact he never shows up
when you need him

tell me again
what is there to love
about a man who doesn't love you ~ R.H. Sin

In every culture, in every language, there is expressive play, expressive word play; there's language use to different purposes that we would call poetry. ~ Edward Hirsch