Jamaican Poetry Quotes

Know then that every heartbless
given is collected by Jah like mickle and muckle,
or like a basketful of cocoa, and comes back to you
like a dividend. ~ Kei Miller

From our solitude
we shall create,
forge songs ,
pour in the reflection
of the stars and
refresh the mind
about the silk-ridden roads
that wait for them
who have forgotten
to feel. ~ Tara Estacaan

Never before had a woman put such agonizing poetry on canvas as Frida did ~ Diego Rivera

I give this book 5 Stars and highly recommend it to all fiction, nonfiction, and poetry writers, aspiring writers, bloggers or journalists. ~ Sunny

The fatal problem with poetry: poems. ~ Ben Lerner

But for me, being an editor I've been an editor of all kinds of books being an editor of poetry has been the way in which I could give a crucial part of my time to what I love most. ~ Peter Davison

It wasn't her hypnotic eyes that drew him in
or the wild sway of her hips;
it was that devil's blood-red lipstick
smeared all over her chubby angel lips.
He shivered with the magnitude
of impending heaven and hell in one woman.
He crashed into heaven
while crossing the thresholds of hell. ~ Melody Lee

You must remain. I must depart.
Two autumns falling in the heart. ~ Buson

When poetry is on the money, 12 words can slay you. I admire that greatly. ~ Daniel Woodrell

Look upward to him
Look upward on our goal
Keep your eyes on him
Look upward to him ~ April Nichole

[On Jason Mashak's book SALTY AS A LIP, as reviewed in The Prague Post:] Mashak amalgamates various national, historical and religious traditions into a myth-mash that illuminates many sects' fanatical compartmentalizing, and the fact that so many religions and philosophies share similar goals, if not roots. ~ Stephan Delbos

A midst deceit I found the truth;
there in the rough I found a diamond.
And from the moment we met,
I think of no one else
Today I choose to be, to live and breathe;
to dream, to weep, and to sing in free verse.
And you, the object of my delight:
a like-minded opposite I am myself with,
a mind-fuck times six, seven, eight thousand and three.
I know that you love me with every inch of your deep. ~ Donato DiCristino

When you touch me there, honey, makes my blood perspire, you got my body flaming like a California fire. Pulsing, pounding, pushing no longer in control, heatwave in my brain, smolder in my soul. ~ Alice Cooper

The radical deficiency of imagist verse, as such, is in its lack of general ideas. Much of it might have been written by an infinitely sensitive decapitated frog. It is hemisphereless poetry. ~ Bliss Perry

Love is nothing out of the ordinary, even if we think it is; even if we idealise it, celebrate it in poetry, sentimentalise it in coy valentines. Love happens to just about everyone; it is like measles or the diseases of childhood; it is as predictable as the losing of milk teeth, or the breaking of a boy's voice. ~ Alexander McCall Smith

To Solitude
O Solitude! if I must with thee dwell,
Let it not be among the jumbled heap
Of murky buildings; climb with me the steep,
Nature's observatory - whence the dell,
Its flowery slopes, its river's crystal swell,
May seem a span; let me thy vigils keep
'Mongst boughs pavillion'd, where the deer's swift leap
Startles the wild bee from the fox-glove bell.
But though I'll gladly trace these scenes with thee,
Yet the sweet converse of an innocent mind,
Whose words are images of thoughts refin'd,
Is my soul's pleasure; and it sure must be
Almost the highest bliss of human-kind,
When to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee. ~ John Keats

I beg you, help me, in angelic charity,
Pray my efforts will reflect your mastery! ~ E.A. Bucchianeri

I don't exist
metal pressed to pages
spilling blood, ink
in vein each thought rages

Sunlight shooting
through a forest of pines
black top winding
and yellow dotted lines

I am not here
only a deep aching,
a lightning flash
and a tree trunk breaking

Sheets once alive
covered in a deep red
mark the present
but I am not yet dead

Nothing is here
only the rain and mist
fresh air and soil
I do not need to exist. ~ Abby Musgrove

For you may palm upon us new for old:
All, as they say, that glitters, is not gold. ~ John Dryden

How to resist nothingness? What power
Preserves what once was, if memory does not last?
For I remember little. I remember so very little. ~ Czesław Miłosz

Father, R.I.P., Sums Me Up at Twenty-Three
She has no head for politics,
craves good jewelry, trusts too readily,
marries too early. Then
one by one she sends away her friends
and stands apart, smug sapphire,
her answer to everything a slender
zero, a silent shrug
and every day
still hears me say she'll never be pretty.
Instead she reads novels, instead her belt
matches her shoes. She is master
of the condolence letter, and knows
how to please a man with her mouth:
Good. Nose too large, eyes too closely set,
hair not glorious blonde, not her mother's red,
nor the glossy black her younger sister has,
the little raven I loved best. ~ Deborah Garrison

What men call love is a very small, restricted, feeble thing compared with this ineffable orgy, this divine prostitution of the soul giving itself entire, all its poetry and all its charity, to the unexpected as it comes along, to the stranger as he passes. ~ Charles Baudelaire

There is no valid reason for the perennial Christian preference of biography, history, and the newspaper to fiction and poetry. The former tell us what happened, while literature tells us what happens. The example of the Bible, which is central to any attempt to formulate a Christian approach to literature, sanctions the imagination as a valid form of truth. The Bible is in large part a work of imagination. Its most customary way of expressing truth is not the sermon or the theological outline, but the story, the poem, and the vision
all of them literary forms and products of the imagination (though not necessarily the fictional imagination). Literary conventions are present in the Bible from start to finish, even in the most historically factual parts. ~ Leland Ryken

Many Hollywoodians may have good taste and an interest in culture but they certainly hide it. They're afraid they'll be branded as sissies if someone finds out they write poetry or own a painting. They're so timid about culture. ~ Vincent Price

Poetry is, first and last, language - the rest is filler. ~ Mark Strand

We will go far away, to nowhere, to conquer, to fertilize until we become tired. Then we will stop and there will be our home. ~ Dejan Stojanovic

Arrival in the world is really a departure and that, which we call departure, is only a return. ~ Dejan Stojanovic

It was a common complaint amongst the Arts students that their library was in dire need of refurbishment. To call the old building shabby chic was being kind. It didn't have automated stacks or self-service machines like the Management and Sciences library the other side of campus and the carpets and bookcases looked like they were probably the Victorian originals.
But on days like this one, where the springtime sunshine streamed in through the high windows and set the dust motes dancing, Harriet sincerely felt that those BSc lot could stuff their vending machines and state of the art study pods. The Old Library was clearly suited for those who had poetry in their souls, rather than numbers in their heads. ~ Erin Lawless

The origins of poetry are clearly rooted in obscurity, in secretiveness, in incantation, in spells that must at once invoke and protect, tell the secret and keep it. ~ Mary Ruefle

SOWING LIGHTNING
Seize
Bolts of lightning from the sky
And plant them in fields of life.
They will grow like tender sprouts of fire.
Charge somber thoughts
With unexpected flash,
You, my lightning in the soil! ~ Visar Zhiti

A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses.
~ Jean Cocteau

If you can't give me poetry, can't you give me poetical science? ~ Ada Lovelace

The weird thing about the bible is that almost everything in it is a metaphor.

So it seems to me that when the bible describes church as a place where two or more people discuss God, they don't mean just the cathedral like churches. I don't know what, who or where God is; but if everything is a metaphor, I think he or she is a comparison to us. I think we are like, or as God. I think when we get together, and talk about ourselves, about being human, about what hurts us; we are also talking about God.

So that's also church, right?

I know this might seem blasphemous, but my priest tells me its okay to ask questions, even if they seem bizarre. ~ Elizabeth Acevedo

Claire spoke often in her poetry of the idea of "fittingness": that is, when your chosen pursuit and your ability to achieve it
no matter how small or insignificant both might be
are matched exactly, are fitting. This, Claire argued, is when we become truly human, fully ourselves, beautiful ... In Claire's presence, you were not faulty or badly designed, no, not at all. You were the fitting receptacle and instrument of your talents and beliefs and desires. ~ Zadie Smith

Words rich in meaning can be cheap in sound effects. ~ Dejan Stojanovic