Poetry Quotes

I think I'm a very good reader of poetry, but obviously, like everybody, I have a set of criteria for reading poems, and I'm not shy about presenting them, so if people ask for my critical response to a poem, I tell them what works and why, and what doesn't work and why.

The poetry of heroism appeals irresistibly to those who don't go to a war, and even more to those whom the war is making enormously wealthy. It's always so.

Thinking in its lower grades, is comparable to paper money, and in its higher forms it is a kind of poetry.

Even if you only want to write science fiction, you should also read mysteries, poetry, mainstream literature, history, biography, philosophy, and science.

On a summer night it can be lovely to sit around outside with friends after dinner and, yes, read poetry to each other. Keats and Yeats will never let you down, but it's differently exciting to read the work of poets who are still walking around out there.

If my poetry aims to achieve anything, it's to deliver people from the limited ways in which they see and feel.

But I liked Yeats! That wild Irishman. I really loved his love of language, his flow. His chaotic ideas seemed to me just the right thing for a poet. Passion! He was always on the right side. He may be wrongheaded, but his heart was always on the right side. He wrote beautiful poetry.

With Shakespeare and poetry, a new world was born. New dreams, new desires, a self consciousness was born. I desired to know to know myself in terms of the new standards set by these books.

Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.

Theater and poetry were what helped people stay alive and want to go on living.

The young people have MTV and rock and roll. Why would they go to read poetry? Poetry belongs to the Stone Age. It awakens in us perceptions that go back to those times.

Once every five hundred years or so, a summary statement about poetry comes along that we can't imagine ourselves living without.

Poetry is a mere drug, Sir.

Nothing truly convincing - which would possess thoroughness, vigor, and skill - has been written against the ancients as yet; especially not against their poetry.

And inasmuch as the bridge is a symbol of all such poetry as I am interested in writing it is my present fancy that a year from now I'll be more contented working in an office than ever before.

There is little premium in poetry in a world that thinks of Pound and Whitman as a weight and a sampler, not an Ezra, a Walt, a thing of beauty, a joy forever.

Poetry is composing for the breath.

I've already written 300 space poems. But I look upon my ultimate form as being a poetic prose. When you read it, it appears to be prose, but within the prose you have embedded the techniques of poetry.

I don't think I've ever read poetry, ever.

When I was asked to be Writer in Residence at Edinburgh I thought, you can't teach poetry. This is ridiculous.

Now I think poetry will save nothing from oblivion, but I keep writing about the ordinary because for me it's the home of the extraordinary, the only home.

God is the perfect poet.

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

Poetry is really a way of sharing feelings and ideas.

And at least in poetry you should feel free to lie. That is, not to lie, but to imagine what you want, to follow the direction of the poem.

A poet can survive everything but a misprint.

There is no gilding of setting sun or glamor of poetry to light up the ferocious and endless toil of the farmers' wives.

When I was writing pretty poor poetry, this girl with midnight black hair told me to go on.

Rap is rhythm and poetry. Hip-hop is storytelling and poetry as well.

Poetry is the key to the hieroglyphics of nature.