Quotes about Poetry

Poems are made of words. They aren't boxes. They aren't houses. Nobody is in them, really.

There are three things, after all, that a poem must reach: the eye, the ear, and what we may call the heart or the mind. It is the most important of all to reach the heart of the reader.

O for the gentleness of old Romance, the simple planning of a minstrel's song!

Let the mad poets say whate'er they pleaseOf the sweets of Fairies, Peris, Goddesses,Haunters of cavern, lake, and waterfall,As a real woman, lineal indeedFrom Pyrrha's pebbles or old Adam's seed.

The poetry of earth is never dead.

Poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by Singularity—it should strike the Reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a Remembrance.

The poetry of the earth is never dead.

Mordecai allowed a smile to play across his face. "I have little doubt this ploy will try your patience. You must present Sir Percival as a gallant knight well-versed in chivalry and a favored champion in the tourneys. Perhaps a bit of poetry would be in order as well." Dante rolled his eyes and sighed. "I shall be the very picture of chivalrous drivel.

I don't think of poetry as a 'rational' activity but as an aural one. My poems usually begin with words or phrases which appeal more because of their sound than their meaning, and the movement and phrasing of a poem are very important to me.

Poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by singularity, it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance.

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.

O night that joinedBeloved and loverLover into beloved transformed