Polish Poetry Quotes

I didn't ever consider poetry the province exclusively of English and American literature and I discovered a great amount in reading Polish poetry and other Eastern European poetry and reading Russian poetry and reading Latin American and Spanish poetry and I've always found models in those other poetries of poets who could help me on my path. ~ Edward Hirsch

Poetic talent doesn't operate in a vacuum. There is a spirit of Polish poetry. ~ Wislawa Szymborska

As a child
I put my finger in the fire
to become
a saint.

As a teenager
every day I would knock my head against the wall.

As a young girl
I went out through a window of a garret
to the roof
in order to jump.

As a woman
I had lice all over my body.
They cracked when I was ironing my sweater.

I waited sixty minutes
to be executed.
I was hungry for six years.

Then I bore a child,
they were carving me
without putting me to sleep.

Then a thunderbolt killed me
three times and I had to rise from the dead three times
without anyone's help.

Now I am resting
after three resurrections. ~ Anna Swir

Then there was someone else I met,
whose face and voice I can't forget,
and the memory of her
is like a jail I'm trapped inside,
or maybe she is something I just use
to hold my real life at a distance. ~ Tony Hoagland

Islamic tradition does not recognize such presumptuous and conceited preoccupation as "reviewing", which is now widely practised among scholars who regard highly this legacy of the Western tradition modern scholarship. a Muslim scholar, with the work of another before him, would either - according to Islamic tradition - refute it (radd), or elaborate it further in commentary (sharh) as the occasion demands. there is no such thing as "reviewing" it, whether the "review" is termed as such or as any other term which describes it. If there are petty mistakes they turn a blind eye to them; if there are obscurities they explain them in commentary - they polish a positive work and make it shine. ~ Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas

Oracle of Delphi:
In my deep mystery I breathe
your fragrance swirling in
your odourless soul
I return your mystery
revealing your destiny deep in
the seed of your God Self ~ Ramon Ravenswood

THE PRESOCRATIC PROBLEM
[all snap flags]
Parmenides named his gun The Hot Power of the Stars. His gun was one, uncreated, imperishable, timeless, changeless, perfect, spherical. Spherical was the problem. ~ Anne Carson

I really believe, or want to believe, really I am nuts, otherwise I'll never be sane. ~ Allen Ginsberg

Words are power. The more words you know and can recognize, use, define, understand, the more power you will have as a human being ... The more language you know, the more likely it is that no one can get over on you.
selection from book: Our Difficult Sunlight: A Guide to Poetry, Literacy & Social Justice in Classroom & Community ~ Quraysh Ali Lansana & Georgia A. Popoff

Yes ... I love how the Irish are so comfortable with paradox that they revel in it. In fact, if you took it away from them, I suspect they would start gasping like fish out of water. No wonder their land's name, now removed from its Gaelic notions of abundance in 'eire,' evokes anger, or 'ire,' and yet also the rich, cooling green of a sea-colored jewel. A 'terrible beauty' indeed. They understand oppression and repression and explosion, but they remain a culture of faith-faith that creaks and groans and pulls, but is alive and never dull. And which urges them to art, to poetry, to song-these, too, are forms of action. Of passion. Of conviction. Yes, of love. ~ Carolyn Weber

Whenever life is getting tough hold on.
Don't let it get the best of you stay strong. ~ Laqueisha Malone

His Kiss:
He has me at his every whim;
everything starts with him.
To all the boys I used to kiss
everything stops with his. ~ Lang Leav

LAST NIGHT IN THE CITY
Written in the style of Andrew Fusek Peters…… by Charlotte Eden Aged 9. My granddaughter

Last night I saw the city boasting.
Fat and ugly office blocks gloated
over poor and empty parking lots,
and conceited takeaways mocked
the fish and chip shops

Last night I saw the city sleeping.
The sun, as hot as an oven, began
to rest its brightness,
and the moon awoke from
his deep slumber.

Last night I saw the city breathing.
Airports inhaled the landing planes,
while cars wheezed in the
Cold, frosty night.

Last night I saw the city crying.
The gleaming stars poured from
the night sky, and landed
in a cracked, glass puddle.

Last night I saw the city chuckling.
Owls laughed at the bats' jokes,
while hedgehogs made fun of the
hibernating squirrels.

Last night I saw the city performing.
The thin trees danced in the puffing wind,
and the stars put on a show
in the moonlight.

Charlotte Eden
June 2016. Copyright ~ Ann Perry

moonlight the falsest the most languid the most petit-bourgeois
strikes me
I like it ~ Nâzım Hikmet Ran

Jeremy Bentham startled the world many years ago by stating in effect that if the amount of pleasure obtained from each be equal there is nothing to choose between poetry and push-pin. Since few people now know what push-pin is, I may explain that it is a child's game in which one player tries to push his pin across that of another player, and if he succeeds and then is able by pressing down on the two pins with the ball of his thumb to lift them off the table he wins possession of his opponent's pin. [...] The indignant retort to Bentham's statement was that spiritual pleasures are obviously higher than physical pleasures. But who say so? Those who prefer spiritual pleasures. They are in a miserable minority, as they acknowledge when they declare that the gift of aesthetic appreciation is a very rare one. The vast majority of men are, as we know, both by necessity and choice preoccupied with material considerations. Their pleasures are material. They look askance at those who spent their lives in the pursuit of art. That is why they have attached a depreciatory sense to the word aesthete, which means merely one who has a special appreciation of beauty. How are we going to show that they are wrong? How are we going to show that there is something to choose between poetry and push-pin? I surmise that Bentham chose push-pin for its pleasant alliteration with poetry. Let us speak of lawn tennis. It is a popular game which many of us can play with pleasure. It needs skill and jud ~ W. Somerset Maugham

But the summits of poetry are mysteries; they are shiftingly veiled, and those who catch the glimpses see different aspects of the transcendental; but they have seen something, and they come down with the glory lingering on them. ~ Ruth Pitter

Poetry is a mock of a cry at finding a million dollars and a mock of a laugh at losing it. ~ Carl Sandburg

On sunny days of summer,
I am indeed the butterfly;
And like the ancient drummer,
I rhythm straight towards the sky ... ~ Stephan Attia

He could build a city. Has a certain capacity. There's a niche in his chest
where a heart would fit perfectly
and he thinks if he could just maneuver one into place –
well then, game over. ~ Richard Siken

Native Soil

There's
Nobody simpler than us, or with
more pride, or fewer tears.
(1922)

Our hearts don't wear it as an amulet,
it doesn't sob beneath the poet's hand,
nor irritate the wounds we can't forget
in our bitter sleep. It's not the Promised Land.
Our souls don't calculate its worth
as a commodity to be sold and bought;
sick, and poor, and silent on this earth,
often we don't give it a thought.
Yes, for us it's the dirt on our galoshes,
yes, for us it's the grit between our teeth.
Dust, and we grind and crumble and crush it,
the gentle and unimplicated earth.
But we'll lie in it, become its weeds and flowers,
so unembarrassedly we call it - ours. ~ Anna Akhmatova

I keep thinking about blood, I dream about it. Wake up thinking about it. Pretty soon I'll be writing morbid emo poetry about it. ~ Cassandra Clare

In the forefront of our move toward change, there is only poetry to hint at possibility made real. ~ Audre Lorde

Lonely you linger in a league above poetry. ~ Mie Hansson

I put an apple on my table. Then I put myself inside this apple. What tranquility! ~ Henri Michaux

How does one say something new and not retell? ~ Dejan Stojanovic

A poem begins as an inner tune in the heart that beats with emotions and words waiting to be played with love. ~ Debasish Mridha

From the first note I knew it was different from anything I had ever heard.... It began simply, but with an arresting phrase, so simple, but eloquent as a human voice. It spoke, beckoning gently as it unwound, rising and tensing. It spiraled upward, the tension growing with each repeat of the phrasing, and yet somehow it grew more abandoned, wilder with each note. His eyes remained closed as his fingers flew over the strings, spilling forth surely more notes than were possible from a single violin. For one mad moment I actually thought there were more of them, an entire orchestra of violins spilling out of this one instrument. I had never heard anything like it--it was poetry and seduction and light and shadow and every other contradiction I could think of. It seemed impossible to breathe while listening to that music, and yet all I was doing was breathing, quite heavily. The music itself had become as palpable a presence in that room as another person would have been--and its presence was something out of myth. ~ Deanna Raybourn

Poetry contains philosophy as the soul contains reason. ~ Victor Hugo

Silly little monster" all would say.
They'd scratch its head and turn away
until it snatched their tiny noses.
They couldn't even smell the roses!
Ever after, every child
dreaded monsters, fierce or mild. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

The Wedding Ring

Although the lamp was out, above its darkness
I saw the bright reflection of a flame.
My soul is bare, stripped to the purest bareness;
It has escaped, transcended all its bounds.

A man, I held desire my dearest treasure.
but I give it, myself, my sacred pain,
my prayers, my ecstasies - all these, O Father,
I give with love to You, most loving one.

And so the hour of limitless surrender
enclosed me in a cloak of flames like wings;
empowered me with the power of Your commandment,
and clothed me in Your holy veil of fire.

So let me stretch my hand out to my brother;
I look in the Face of You, the Fount of Life,
and in the radiance of transfigured torture
I bear my cross, light as a wedding ring. ~ Zinaida Gippius

Had enough of my poetry yet? That's why they pay me to fight demons instead. ~ Charles Stross

Think it's a poetry that comes out of the stuff of the poet's personal life, but he's trying to render this experience in more general and inclusive, or what used to be called universal, ~ David Shields

News isn't designed to talk about daily life in its nuances, but poetry is. ~ Eliza Griswold

... I slipped our wicker bed and walked the sands
where we were also roughly repeated: some young couple,
"you did," "I didn't," "you sure the fuck did" – they hugged
that bicker to their chests like blankets fighting cold. ~ Albert Goldbarth

Love is a poem that keeps on writing itself, sweeping us along. ~ Patricia Robin Woodruff

Anything you want very badly is located outside of your comfort zone. ~ Tracey L. Moore

Resolve, and thou art free. But breathe the air
Of mountains, and their unapproachable summits
Will lift thee to the level of themselves. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Some people make tunes, but it is lines that run like moving messages through my head. Whatever else I am saying and doing often has no bearing on this inner, verbal life. ~ Susan Hill

The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something and tell what it saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion, all in one. ~ John Ruskin

There is all the poetry in the world in a name. It is a poem which the mass of men hear and read. What is poetry in the common sense, but a hearing of such jingling names? I want nothing better than a good word. The name of a thing may easily be more than the thing itself to me. ~ Henry David Thoreau