Poetry Essays Quotes

In 2013 there were 7,427 poetry readings in April, many on a Thursday. For anyone born in 1928 who pays attention to poetry, the numerousness is astonishing. In April 1948, there were 15 readings in the United States, 12 by Robert Frost. So I claim. The figures are imaginary, but you get the point. ~ Donald Hall

I refuse to consider Art a drain-pipe for passion, a kind of chamberpot, a slightly more elegant substitute for gossip and confidences. No, no! Genuine poetry is not the scum of the heart. ~ Gustave Flaubert

Pity that child who was born near Rouen,
His only crime, to arrive deformed. ~ E.A. Bucchianeri

Failures of nerve and energy are not permitted. That's what it means to be an object. ~ Mary Kinzie

Some things are not always what they appear to be.
Your thoughts lead you as far as the eyes can see. ~ Laqueisha Malone

let your love cover me like skin.
i want the whole world to see. ~ AVA.

For the weeping warriors, for the savage saints,
for the bleeding mothers with fire in their eyes,
for the hidden mystics whose prayers keep the earth spinning,
for the buddhas who'll use their teeth when their blades are broken
and let their evolutionary ancestors howl through them,
this one is for you, my lovelies. ~ Caitlin Johnstone

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

Expansion (both far and wide) is the order of the day ~ Sereda Aleta Dailey

Poetry, unlike music, is a meta-art, and relies upon non-physical structures for the production of its effects. In its case, the medium is syntax, grammar and logical continuity, which together form the carrier-wave of plain sense within which its deeper meanings are broadcast. ~ Don Paterson

Prose is prose because of what it includes; poetry is poetry because of what it leaves out. ~ Marvin Bell

Poetry's always dead, you know? You don't realize how good poetry is until 15 years later. ~ Richard Hell

We know the surrealist solution: concrete irrationality, objective risk. Poetry is the conquest, the only possible conquest, of the 'supreme position', 'a certain position of the mind from where life and death, the real and the imaginary, the past and the future ... cease to be perceived in a contradictory sense.' ~ Albert Camus

Sonnet 130
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare. ~ William Shakespeare

I wanna make growing old with you
the last poem I ever have to write ~ Michael Biondi

In ev'ry life there comes a winter bleak
That, in it, never yet seems life to come
And on each heart such desolation wreak
That even light from Heaven seems succumb'.
But, even as in year, doth follow Spring
As ever hath it, through all Ages past
Yet so in life a joy again will ring
And light and love will come again at last. ~ Stephanie Osborn

A hidden spark of the dream sleeps
In the forest and waits
In the celestial spheres of the brain. ~ Dejan Stojanovic

At first I was blogging everyday, but I don't do that anymore. It varies; sometimes I'll write these little essays and other times political commentaries. Other times it'll just be new work that I'm doing. ~ Stephen Vincent Benet

It is a curious thing how poets tend to become ascetics ... Even a debauch for them is a self-flagellation. They go on the loose in cruelty against themselves, admitting that they are pandering to, and despising, the lower self. ~ D.H. Lawrence

If poetry escapes my mouth then it shall seek comfort in your heart. Will you keep it safe? ~ Delano Johnson

Sissy: You really don't believe in political solutions do you?

The Chink: I believe in political solutions to political problems. But man's primary problems aren't political; they're philosophical. Until humans can solve their philosophical problems, they're condemned to solve their political problems over and over and over again. It's a cruel, repetitious bore.

Sissy: Well, then, what are the philosophical solutions?

The Chink: Ha ha ho ho and hee hee. That's for you to find out. I'll say this much and no more: there's got to be poetry. And magic. At every level. If civilization is ever going to be anything but a grandiose pratfall, anything more than a can of deodorizer in the shithouse of existence, then statesmen are going to have to concern themselves with magic and poetry. Bankers are going to have to concern themselves with magic and poetry. Time magazine is going to have to write about magic and poetry. Factory workers and housewives are going to have to get their lives entangled in magic and poetry.

Sissy: Do you think such a thing can ever happen?

The Chink: If you understood poetry and magic, you'd know that it doesn't matter. ~ Tom Robbins

There's no poetry in me, Reginleit. No fine words." He stared down at her, his gaze seeming to consume her. "I come to you as a man unfinished. ~ Kresley Cole

I want a marriage of companions - one of shared lives and shared poems,' he murmured. 'If we were husband and wife, we would collect books, read, and drink tea together. As I told you before, I'd want you for what's in here.'
Again he pointed to my heart, but I felt it in a place far lower in my body. ~ Lisa See

What is your heart worth?
What about your time?
What holds your heart, holds your attention.
What holds your attention, holds your time.
What holds your time, holds your life.
And if it's possessions that holds these things,
It will demand it all. ~ Eric Overby

I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart)I am never without it (anywhere
I go you go,my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing,my darling)
I fear no fate (for you are my fate,my sweet)I want no world (for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart) ~ E. E. Cummings

Sex and love are what make the world go round. It's the heart of poetry and music. ~ Vonnie Davis

Your house has two colors," she said,
while looking up at a corner
of my ceiling and walls.
"Yes," I replied.
"Why is that rainbow beach blanket on the couch?"
I replied, "Color."
She bent over and ripped
the beach towel off my white couch.
Maybe she thought I was trying to hide something.
"You talk a lot," she said sarcastically.
I looked back at her.
Maybe I raised an eyebrow,
but I didn't say anything.
She's right, of course.
I don't talk much.
I am a simple man.
I speak from my heart.
Sometimes, I write poetry. ~ Jeffrey A. White

Only in books the flat and final happens,
Only in dreams we meet and interlock ... ~ Philip Larkin

To come up with one great sentence, one needs to serve a life sentence. ~ Lera Auerbach

Give me the scorn of the stars and a peak defiant;
Wail of the pines and a wind with the shout of a giant;
Night and a trail unknown and a heart reliant. ~ Robert W. Service

A play's got to be a dramatic event, not a lyrical event. It's not music, it's not poetry, it's not dance, it's not narrative - it's dramaticit's about conflict. It's about forces coming together. ~ Romulus Linney

The saddest word
in the whole wide world
is the word almost.

He was almost in love.
She was almost good for him.
He almost stopped her.
She almost waited.
He almost lived.
They almost made it. ~ Nikita Gill