Poem Starter Quotes

Sometimes the grass gets mowed
at the house where the writer lives. ~ Christopher J. Jarmick

The poem finds the word that finds the feeling. ~ Jeanette Winterson

...definitely believe that, there's got to be a spark to a place...to make it feel like a home... ~ Isabella Koldras, Poem My Home.

Poetry teaches us things that cannot be learned in prose, such as certain kinds of irony or the importance of the unsaid. The most important element of any poem is the part that is left unsaid. So the poetry frames the experience that lies beyond naming. ~ Sam Hamill

A well-made poem is a little haunted house, a tangible dwelling place for the spirit ~ Daniel Veach

I told her it takes
a lot of solitude to write a poem.
She told me it takes a lot of solitude
to die. ~ Ronald Baatz

O Lord, may I never want to look good. O Jesus, may I always read it all: out loud and the very way it should be. May I never look at the other findings until I have come to my own true conclusions: May I care for the least of the young: and become aware of the one poem that each may have written; may I be aware of what each thing is, delighted with form, and wary of the false comparison; may I never use the word "brilliant." ~ Theodore Roethke

Then winter ended and spring came, and I thought, even if I don't believe there's a poem in anything anymore, maybe I'll write a story. A lot of people do that when they can't seem to figure out who or what they love. It might be an oversimplification, but they seem to write poetry when they do know. ~ Jennifer Egan

That small word "Force," they make a barber's block,
Ready to put on
Meanings most strange and various, fit to shock
Pupils of Newton ...
The phrases of last century in this
Linger to play tricks
Vis viva and Vis Mortua and Vis Acceleratrix:
Those long-nebbed words that to our text books still
Cling by their titles,
And from them creep, as entozoa will,
Into our vitals.
But see! Tait writes in lucid symbols clear
One small equation;
And Force becomes of Energy a mere
Space-variation. ~ James Clerk Maxwell

I sought Him where my logic led.
"This friend is always sure and right;
His lantern is sufficient light.
I need no Star," I said.

I sought Him in the city square.
Logic and I went up and down
The marketplace of many a town,
But He was never there.

I tracked Him to the mind's far rim.
The valiant intellect went forth
To east and west and south and north,
But found no trace of Him.

We walked the world from sun to sun,
Logic and I, with Little Faith,
But never came to Nazareth,
Nor met the Holy One.

We sought in vain. And finally,
Back to the heart's small house I crept,
And fell upon my knees, and wept;
And Lo! He came to me! ~ Sara Henderson Hay

When people talk about poetry as a project, they suggest that the road through a poem is a single line. When really the road through a poem is a series of lines, like a constellation, all interconnected. Poems take place in the realm of chance, where the self and the universal combine, where life exist. I can't suggest to you that going through a line that is more like a constellation than a road is easy - or that the blurring of the self and the universal doesn't shred a poet a little bit in the process. The terrain of a poem is unmapped (including the shapes of the trees along the constellation-road). A great poet knows never to expect sun or rain or cold or wind in the process of creating a poem. In a great poem all can come to the fore at once. It would be worse yet, if none are there at all. ~ Dorothea Lasky

A well crafted life is like a good poem. What is left out tells others every bit as much about you as what is added in. ~ Eric Vance Walton

If the poem is so moving that even if you have no experience in that particular setting be it 1920's Harlem let's say. You still are so moved that you can put yourself in that position. That means that the writer has managed to go beyond the personal and touch the humanity in all of us and it's really a blast to read it because I realize how that this does hold true for the truly great poems. ~ Rita Dove

She is dying because she said.
She is dying for the sake of the word.
It is her body, silent
and fingerless, writing this poem. ~ Margaret Atwood

When the sun shouts and people abound One thinks there were the ages of stone and the age of bronze And the iron age; iron the unstable metal; Steel made of iron, unstable as his mother; the tow-ered-up cities Will be stains of rust on mounds of plaster. Roots will not pierce the heaps for a time, kind rains will cure them, Then nothing will remain of the iron age And all these people but a thigh-bone or so, a poem Stuck in the world's thought, splinters of glass In the rubbish dumps, a concrete dam far off in the mountain ... ~ Robinson Jeffers

I am looking at this shiny star tonight,
Wishing wishes could come true...
I wonder if by any chance,
He sees the same star too!!


The overwhelming darkness tickles the lonely heart tonight,
I wonder if he sees the star I am watching,
May be he would stand within its light!

There are many miles between us,
but still our souls can meet...
At this point when we look at this star together,
May be our hearts could find their beat!

Don't you feel the need for someone to come,
Into your life...
I am wishing for the same thing,
As I watch this star tonight!

This gentle light on my face,
Cheers and comforts and holds me tight...
I wonder if by some chance,
I find you holding me with love and sitting by my side!

But this remains a wish as he is still unseen and unknown,
I wonder who he might be, to whom I would be prone!

A hopeless or born romantic,
Everyone is searching for true love,
Wishing wishes in the darkness,
To this magical star that hangs above! ~ Anamika Mishra

Satire among the Romans, but not among the Greeks, was a bitter invective poem. ~ John Dryden

Let us dismiss, as irrelevant to the poem per se, the circumstance ... which, in the first place, gave rise to the intention of composing a poem that should suit at once the popular and the critical taste. ~ Edgar Allan Poe

There's no artist in this world that doesn't enjoy the dream that if they have bad reviews now, the story of Keats can redeem them, in their fantasy or imagination, in the future. I think Keats' poem 'Endymion' is a really difficult poem, and I'm not surprised that a lot of people pulled it apart in a way. ~ Jane Campion

She wore her scars
as her best attire.
A stunning dress
made of hellfire. ~ Daniel Saint

A poem is about something the way a cat is about the house. ~ Allen Grossman

My favourite poem is the one that starts 'Thirty days hath September' because it actually tells you something. ~ Groucho Marx

A poem needs understaning through the senses. The point of diving in a lake, is not immediately to swim to the shore, but to be in the lake; to luxuriate in the sensation of water. You do not work the lake out, it is an experience beyond thought. Poetry soothes and emboldens the soul to accept mystery. ~ John Keats

You don't read a poem to find the meaning of life. The opposite. I mean, you'd be foolish to. Now, some American poets present the reader with a slice of life, saying, I went to the store today, and I saw a man, and he looked at me, and I looked at him, and we both knew we were ... thieves. And aren't we all thieves? You know, this is extracting from everyday experience a statement about life, or a moral. ~ Mark Strand

the poem.
the one that is running through
your life.
pay attention.
to that poem. ~ Nayyirah Waheed

I am, a shadow
that grows longer as the sun
moves, drawn out
on a thread of wonder.
If I bear burdens
they begin to be remembered
as gifts, goods, a basket
of bread that hurts
my shoulders but closes me
in fragrance. I can
eat as I go.
("Stepping Westward") ~ Denise Levertov

It really gets on my goat that people keep quoting Dorothea Mackellar's 'My Country' as proof that there is no such thing as climate change. A poem written more than 100 years ago by a homesick 19 year old versus an ever-increasing body of refereed scientific thought ... hmm, hard to know which way to jump, really. ~ Judy Horacek

No amount of words,
No haiku, poem, or novel,
Can tell of our love ~ Eric Overby

Must always try to be out there
Getting everything out there
Take what is inside yourself
And place it out there. ~ Initially NO

She had the whisky licking, skinny dipping smile. ~ Atticus Poetry

Everything is still everything.

The Poem Remains. ~ R.M. Engelhardt

She cries,
I laugh,
She becomes numb,
I become filled with joy,
She slowly crumbles,
I feel on top of the world,
Yet somehow in the end,
Out of the ashes,
She rose like a Phoenix,
As if nothing had ever touched her ~ Tanzy Sayadi

For me, a painting must give off sparks. It must dazzle like the beauty of a woman or a poem. ~ Joan Miro

Certain voices heard
are heard
not because
they
are phonetic...

But,
from one soul
they head,
to another,
in the form of magic.
(Poem: When, When a not, Book: Ginger and Honey) ~ Jasleen Kaur Gumber

Gratitude
... here at home our faith dwindles
political division
causes tensions to kindle -
we should never forget
who stands at the door -
who shields us with armor
and shall forever more ... ~ Muse

I Love Loving You

You are my favorite song; a rhythm of beauty that captures my spirit.

You are my favorite poem; an exquisite grouping of ideas set in motion with an unmatched enchanting elegance.

You are my best friend; from our laughter to our deep conversations, our moments together are a timeless pleasure.

You are my soul mate; a connection so pure, so powerful, that it can only be considered divine.

You are my lover; a passionate entwinement, a chorus of ecstasy, and a feeling of complete unity that words could never adequately describe.

You are my angel; you remind me of the goodness in this world and inspire me to be the greatest version of myself.

You are my home; it is in your loving gaze that I find the comfort, acceptance, and the sense of belonging.

You are my love ~ mi amor; there are not enough days in forever to allow me to fully express my love for you.

I love loving you. ~ Steve Maraboli

Tomorrow she'd look up tattoo removal. They were doing big things with lasers now. When Cal was just a little more stable, she'd break up with him, gently, and then she'd begin her project of helping everybody she could help, and after that she'd head out on a great long journey to absolutely nowhere and write a gorgeous poem cycle steeped in heavenly lavender-scented closure and also utter despair, a poem cycle you could also actually ride for its aerobic benefits, and she'd pedal that fucker straight across the face of the earth until at some point she'd coast right off the edge, whereupon she'd giggle and say, Oh, shit. ~ Sam Lipsyte

Tiny Giggles
Silly giggles of laughter
I store upon a shelf
I give some to other
I save some for myself
I am rich beyond all measure
Though not with worldly wealth
I store up these treasures
For my heart and soulful health. ~ Muse

Cold stars reflected in the water
Abyss beckons us his dark distance.
Our world, only one of hundreds,
In which we can not see the sun.
In this world, I am uneasy,
I want to touch another planets.
Because there is dark and cramped,
That spirit is calling me to run.
Wander through the world I'm tired,
And every day to meet the dawn,
For me this world has closed its doors.
I want to go to other worlds,
To know all mysteries of their,
And here never to return. ~ Arthur Tomaszewicz

Every day one should at least hear one little song, read one good poem, see one fine painting and
if at all possible
speak a few sensible words. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

It is a two-line poem, which could be really sweet, or sour at times and it depends, totally on the way we use it. ~ Saravana Kumar Murugan

Going to grocery stores is almost my favorite thing to do to calm myself down. There's something about just walking aisle after aisle making mundane choices. 'Do I want that? No, I want the one that has the low sodium.' And that feels like a good exercise to be doing when there isn't anything to be doing. It's like a kick-starter in some way. ~ Shane Carruth