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
Poetry is life distilled.
—Gwendolyn Brooks (1917–2000) American Poet , 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
You will not find poetry anywhere unless you bring some of it with you.
—Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French Writer, Moralist
Poetry, even when apparently most fantastic, is always a revolt against artifice, a revolt, in a sense, against actuality.
—James Joyce (1882–1941) Irish Novelist, Poet
A beautiful line of verse has twelve feet, and two wings.
—Jules Renard (1864–1910) French Writer, Diarist
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
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
Poetry is the exquisite expression of exquisite expressions.
—Philibert Joseph Roux (1780–1854) French Surgeon
A good poet’s made as well as born.
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637) English Dramatist, Poet, Actor
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
A poem records emotions and moods that lie beyond normal language, that can only be patched together and hinted at metaphorically.
—Diane Ackerman (b.1948) American Poet, Essayist, Naturalist
Perhaps no person can be a poet, or can even enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind.
—Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–59) English Historian, Essayist, Philanthropist
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
Every old poem is sacred.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (65–8 BCE) Roman Poet
Poetry is the language in which man explores his own amazement… says heaven and earth in one word… speaks of himself and his predicament as though for the first time. It has the virtue of being able to say twice as much as prose in half the time, and the drawback, if you do not give it your full attention, of seeming to say half as much in twice the time.
—Christopher Fry (1907–2005) English Poet, Playwright
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
A person born with an instinct for poverty.
—Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American Writer, Publisher, Artist, Philosopher
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
The blood jet is poetry and there is no stopping it.
—Sylvia Plath (1932–63) American Poet, Novelist
Any healthy man can go without food for two days—but not without poetry.
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–67) French Poet, Art Critic, Essayist, Translator
Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.
—Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American Biographer, Novelist, Socialist
Poetry is the achievement of the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.
—Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American Biographer, Novelist, Socialist
It is a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it.
—W. H. Auden (1907–73) British-born American Poet, Dramatist
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
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
The writing of a poem is like a child throwing stones into a mineshaft. You compose first, then you listen for the reverberation.
—James Fenton
A poem is never finished, only abandoned.
—Paul Valery (1871–1945) French Critic, Poet
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
Poetry is indispensable—if I only knew what for.
—Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French Poet, Playwright, Film Director
A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.
—Robert Frost (1874–1963) American Poet
As a poet there is only one political duty, and that is to defend one’s language against corruption. When it is corrupted, people lose faith in what they hear and this leads to violence.
—W. H. Auden (1907–73) British-born American Poet, Dramatist
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
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
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
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
Each venture is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate with shabby equipment always deteriorating in the general mess of imprecision of feeling.
—T. S. Eliot (1888–1965) American-born British Poet, Dramatist, Literary Critic
Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Poet, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist
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
The courage of the poets is to keep ajar the door that leads into madness.
—Christopher Morley (1890–1957) American Novelist, Essayist
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 as soon write free verse as play tennis with the net down.
—Robert Frost (1874–1963) American Poet
Immature poets imitate, mature poets steal.
—Philip Massinger (1583–1640) English Playwright
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
When a poet’s mind is perfectly equipped for its work, it is constantly amalgamating disparate experiences.
—T. S. Eliot (1888–1965) American-born British Poet, Dramatist, Literary Critic
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
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
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
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
Verses which do not teach men new and moving truths do not deserve to be read.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author