Poetry is the achievement of the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.
—Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American Biographer, Novelist, Socialist
War talk by men who have been in a war is always interesting; whereas moon talk by a poet who has not been in the moon is likely to be dull.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
A beautiful line of verse has twelve feet, and two wings.
—Jules Renard (1864–1910) French Writer, Diarist
Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those we have personality and emotion know what it means to want to escape from these things.
—T. S. Eliot (1888–1965) American-born British Poet, Dramatist, Literary Critic
When power leads man towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses. For art establishes the basic human truth which must serve as the touchstone of our judgment.
—John F. Kennedy (1917–63) American Head of State, Journalist
Immature poets imitate, mature poets steal.
—Philip Massinger (1583–1640) English Playwright
Poetry is the utterance of deep and heart-felt truth—the true poet is very near the oracle.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin (1814–80) American Preacher, Poet
Poets and heroes are of the same race, the latter do what the former conceive.
—Alphonse de Lamartine (1790–1869) French Poet, Politician, Historian
But all art is sensual and poetry particularly so. It is directly, that is, of the senses, and since the senses do not exist without an object for their employment all art is necessarily objective. It doesn’t declaim or explain, it presents.
—William Carlos Williams (1883–1963) American Poet, Novelist, Cultural Historian
A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.
—Robert Frost (1874–1963) American Poet
I cannot accept the doctrine that in poetry there is a “suspension of belief.” A poet must never make a statement simply because it is sounds poetically exciting; he must also believe it to be true.
—W. H. Auden (1907–73) British-born American Poet, Dramatist
You will not find poetry anywhere unless you bring some of it with you.
—Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French Writer, Moralist
To a poet, silence is an acceptable response, even a flattering one.
—Colette (1873–1954) French Novelist, Performer
In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in the case of poetry, it’s the exact opposite!
—Paul Dirac (1902–84) English Theoretical Physicist
The poetic act consists of suddenly seeing that an idea splits up into a number of equal motifs and of grouping them; they rhyme.
—Stephane Mallarme (1842–98) French Symbolist Poet
An age which is incapable of poetry is incapable of any kind of literature except the cleverness of a decadence.
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959) American Novelist
Poetry is the journal of a sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the sky.
—Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American Biographer, Novelist, Socialist
Written poetry is worth reading once, and then should be destroyed. Let the dead poets make way for others. Then we might even come to see that it is our veneration for what has already been created, however beautiful and valid it may be, that petrifies us.
—Antonin Artaud (1896–1948) French Actor, Drama Theorist
I don’t know a better preparation for life than a love of poetry and a good digestion.
—Zona Gale (1874–1938) American Novelist, Story Writer, Dramatist
All one’s inventions are true, you can be sure of that. Poetry is as exact a science as geometry.
—Gustave Flaubert (1821–80) French Novelist, Playwright, Short Story Writer
Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Poet, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist
If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.
—Emily Dickinson (1830–86) American Poet
Poetry must have something in it that is barbaric, vast and wild.
—Denis Diderot (1713–84) French Philosopher, Writer
I by no means rank poetry high in the scale of intelligence—this may look like affectation but it is my real opinion. It is the lava of the imagination whose eruption prevents an earthquake.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
I have a new method of poetry. All you got to do is look over your notebooks… or lay down on a couch, and think of anything that comes into your head, especially the miseries. Then arrange in lines of two, three or four words each, don’t bother about sentences, in sections of two, three or four lines each.
—Allen Ginsberg (1926–97) American Poet, Activist
Poetry should be great and unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one’s soul, and does not startle it or amaze it with itself, but with its subject.
—John Keats (1795–1821) English Poet
With me poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion.
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–49) American Poet
Poetry is indispensable—if I only knew what for.
—Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French Poet, Playwright, Film Director
Just as a new scientific discovery manifests something that was already latent in the order of nature, and at the same time is logically related to the total structure of the existing science, so the new poem manifests something that was already latent in the order of words.
—Northrop Frye
I have written some poetry that I don’t understand myself.
—Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American Biographer, Novelist, Socialist
A person born with an instinct for poverty.
—Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American Writer, Publisher, Artist, Philosopher
The fact that there are so many weak, poor and boring stories and novels written and published in America has been ascribed by our rebels to the horrible squareness of our institutions, the idiocy of power, the debasement of sexual instincts, and the failure of writers to be alienated enough. The poems and novels of these same rebellious spirits, and their theoretical statements, are grimy and gritty and very boring too, besides being nonsensical, and it is evident by now that polymorphous sexuality and vehement declarations of alienation are not going to produce great works of art either.
—Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-American Novelist
Such is the role of poetry. It unveils, in the strict sense of the word. It lays bare, under a light which shakes off torpor, the surprising things which surround us and which our senses record mechanically.
—Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French Poet, Playwright, Film Director
Teach you children poetry; it opens the mind, lends grace to wisdom and makes the heroic virtues hereditary.
—Walter Scott (1771–1832) Scottish Novelist, Poet, Playwright, Lawyer
I take as metaphysical poetry that in which what is ordinarily apprehensible only by thought is brought within the grasp of feeling, or that in which what is ordinarily only felt is transformed into thought without ceasing to be feeling.
—T. S. Eliot (1888–1965) American-born British Poet, Dramatist, Literary Critic
I would define the poetic effect as the capacity that a text displays for continuing to generate different readings, without ever being completely consumed.
—Umberto Eco (1932–2016) Italian Novelist
Who among us has not, in moments of ambition, dreamt of the miracle of a form of poetic prose, musical but without rhythm and rhyme, both supple and staccato enough to adapt itself to the lyrical movements of our souls, the undulating movements of our reveries, and the convulsive movements of our consciences? This obsessive ideal springs above all from frequent contact with enormous cities, from the junction of their innumerable connections.
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–67) French Poet, Art Critic, Essayist, Translator
Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.
—Robert Frost (1874–1963) American Poet
A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. It finds the thought and the thought finds the words.
—Robert Frost (1874–1963) American Poet
Every old poem is sacred.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (65–8 BCE) Roman Poet
A poet’s pleasure is to withhold a little of his meaning, to intensify by mystification. He unzips the veil from beauty, but does not remove it.
—E. B. White (1985–99) American Essayist, Humorist
Poetry is emotion put into measure. The emotion must come by nature, but the measure can be acquired by art.
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English Novelist, Poet
Here undoubtedly lies the chief poetic energy:—in the force of imagination that pierces or exalts the solid fact, instead of floating among cloud-pictures.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose = words in their best order;—poetry = the best words in the best order.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English Poet, Literary Critic, Philosopher
The poet speaks to all men of that other life of theirs that they have smothered and forgotten.
—Edith Sitwell (1887–1964) British Poet, Literary Critic
Poetry is the exquisite expression of exquisite expressions.
—Philibert Joseph Roux (1780–1854) French Surgeon
Prose on certain occasions can bear a great deal of poetry; on the other hand, poetry sinks and swoons under a moderate weight of prose.
—Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864) English Writer, Poet
The blood jet is poetry and there is no stopping it.
—Sylvia Plath (1932–63) American Poet, Novelist
Poetry and progress are like two ambitious men who hate one another with an instinctive hatred, and when they meet upon the same road, one of them has to give place.
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–67) French Poet, Art Critic, Essayist, Translator
That willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English Poet, Literary Critic, Philosopher