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 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 (1833–1908) American Poet, Critic
Poetry is a mere drug, Sir.
—George Farquhar (1677–1707) Irish Dramatist
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
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
Poetry is indispensable—if I only knew what for.
—Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French Poet, Playwright, Film Director
Poetry reveals to us the loveliness of nature, brings back the freshness of youthful feeling, revives the relish of simple pleasures, keeps unquenched the enthusiasm which warmed the spring time of our being, refines youthful love, strengthens our interest in human nature, by vivid delineations of its tenderest and softest feelings, and, through the brightness of its prophetic visions, helps faith to lay hold on the future life.
—William Ellery Channing (1780–1842) American Unitarian Theologian, Poet
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-British Poet, Dramatist, Literary Critic
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
When a poet’s mind is perfectly equipped for its work, it is constantly amalgamating disparate experiences.
—T. S. Eliot (1888–1965) American-British Poet, Dramatist, Literary Critic
Poetry is the impish attempt to paint the color of the wind.
—Maxwell Bodenheim (1892–1954) American Poet, Novelist
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-British Poet, Dramatist, Literary Critic
Poetry is the exquisite expression of exquisite expressions.
—Philibert Joseph Roux (1780–1854) French Surgeon
Every old poem is sacred.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (65–8 BCE) Roman Poet
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
There is only beauty—and it has only one perfect expression—poetry. All the rest is a lie—except for those who live by the body, love, and, that love of the mind, friendship. For me, Poetry takes the place of love, because it is enamored of itself, and because its sensual delight falls back deliciously in my soul.
—Stephane Mallarme (1842–98) French Symbolist 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
The courage of the poets is to keep ajar the door that leads into madness.
—Christopher Morley (1890–1957) American Novelist, Essayist
She opened up a book of poems and handed it to me written by an Italian poet from the 13th century and every one of them words rang true and glowed like burning coal pouring off of every page like it was written in my soul from me to you.
—Bob Dylan (b.1941) American Singer-songwriter
Good poetry seems too simple and natural a thing that when we meet it we wonder that all men are not always poets. Poetry is nothing but healthy speech.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
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
A beautiful line of verse has twelve feet, and two wings.
—Jules Renard (1864–1910) French Writer, Diarist
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
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
No one ever was a great poet, that applied himself much to anything else.
—William Temple (1881–1944) English Theologian, Archbishop
Poetry is the special medium of spiritual crazy wisdom, the form of expression that comes closest to creating a bridge between words and what is wordless.
—Wes Nisker (1942–2023) American Broadcaster, Buddhist Teacher
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
Poetry must have something in it that is barbaric, vast and wild.
—Denis Diderot (1713–84) French Philosopher, Writer
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
A person born with an instinct for poverty.
—Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American Writer, Publisher, Artist, Philosopher
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