850 private quotes tagged poetry

“I started off in England and very few people knew I was Australian. I mean, the clues were in the poems, but they didn't read them very carefully, and so for years and years I was considered completely part of the English poetry scene.” — Peter Porter

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“You don't go after poetry, you take what comes. Maybe the gods do it through me but I certainly do a hell of a lot of the work.” — Phyllis Gotlieb

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“I think it was T.S. Eliot who talked about good poetry being felt before it's understood. I believe that. There are some bands where I love their lyrics but I don't have a clue what they're on about.” — Marcus Mumford

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

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“To feel most beautifully alive means to be reading something beautiful, ready always to apprehend in the flow of language the sudden flash of poetry.” — John Andrew Holmes

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“Great poetry is always written by somebody straining to go beyond what he can do.” — Stephen Spender

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“What does that represent? There was never any question in plastic art, in poetry, in music, of representing anything. It is a matter of making something beautiful, moving, or dramatic - this is by no means the same thing.” — Fernand Leger

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“The older I've got the less I find myself going back and re-reading or really reading new fiction or poetry.” — Reynolds Price

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“Poetry criticism at its worst today is mean in spirit and spiteful in intent, as if determined to inflict the wound that will spur the artist to new heights if it does not cripple him or her.” — David Lehman

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“I don't look on poetry as closed works. I feel they're going on all the time in my head and I occasionally snip off a length.” — John Ashbery

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“Poetry is an art, and chief of the fine art the easiest to dabble in, the hardest in which to reach true excellence.” — Edmund Clarence Stedman

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“Women who are inclined to write poetry at all are inspired by being mad at something.” — Amy Clampitt

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“He fertilizes a phrase or a line of poetry for weeks and then gives birth to it in a speech.” — John Colville

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“I could no more define poetry than a terrier can define a rat.” — Alfred Edward Housman

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“Poetry must be made by all and not by one.” — Comte de Lautreamont

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“That's the way it is with poetry: When it is incomprehensible it seems profound, and when you understand it, it is only ridiculous.” — Galway Kinnell

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“Poetry is like making a joke. If you get one word wrong at the end of a joke, you've lost the whole thing.” — W. S. Merwin

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“Poetry asks people to have values, form opinions, care about some other part of experience besides making money and being successful on the job.” — Toi Derricotte

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“I write poetry in order to live more fully.” — Judith Rodriguez

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“Poetry is an art, the easiest to dabble in, but the hardest to reach true excellence.” — J. G. Stedman

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“For a poet to depict a poet in poetry is a hazardous experiment in regarding one's own trade a sense of humour and a little wholesome cynicism are not amiss.” — Edward Dowden

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“Who writes poetry imbibes honey from the poisoned lips of life.” — William Rose Benet

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“Music has a poetry of its own, and that poetry is called melody.” — Joshua Logan

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“I wrote The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God in five hours, but I had it all planned out. It isn't poetry and it does not pretend to be, but it does what it sets out to do.” — J. Milton Hayes

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“I'm looking for a guy who makes you want to dance and write poetry all day long.” — Angela Sarafyan

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