Poetry Quotes

I don't like to boast, but I have probably skipped more poetry than any other person of my age and weight in this country.

And New York is the most beautiful city in the world? It is not far from it. No urban night is like the night there... Squares after squares of flame, set up and cut into the aether. Here is our poetry, for we have pulled down the stars to our will.

I often imagine that the longer he studies English literature the more the Japanese student must be astonished at the extraordinary predominance given to the passion of love both in fiction and in poetry.

And my father was a comic. He could play any musical instrument. He loved to perform. He was a wonderfully comedic character. He had the ability to dance and sing and charm and analyze poetry.

I think there's no excuse for the American poetry reader not knowing a good deal about what is going on in the rest of the world.

It is time to get drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of Time, get drunk; get drunk without stopping! On wine, on poetry, or on virtue, as you wish.

An age which is incapable of poetry is incapable of any kind of literature except the cleverness of a decadence.

Poetry is a political act because it involves telling the truth.

There'll always be working people in my poems because I grew up with them, and I am a poet of memory.

Religion is no more possible without prayer than poetry without language, or music without atmosphere.

What actually makes poetry poetry is of course impossible to define. We recognize it when we hear it, when we see it, but we can't define it.

I heard Nirvana, and discovered that songs could be like poetry, but a little bit more refined: you didn't have to have 20 verses to get your point across.

If I do a poetry reading I want people to walk out and say they feel better for having been there - not because you've done a comedy performance but because you're talking about your father dying or having young children, things that touch your soul.

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.

Children can write poetry and then, unless they're poets, they stop when reach puberty.

It is the timber of poetry that wears most surely, and there is no timber that has not strong roots among the clay and worms.

Poetry has done enough when it charms, but prose must also convince.

And if they haven't got poetry in them, there's nothing you can do that will produce it.

I was excited by what my painter friends were doing, and they seemed to be interested in our poetry too, and that was a wonderful little, fizzy sort of world.

Everything one invents is true, you may be perfectly sure of that. Poetry is as precise as geometry.

Theater is far superior to film in poetry, in abstract poetry.

Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.

Poetry must be made by all and not by one.

There are distinct duties of a poet laureate. I plan a reading series at the Library of Congress and advise the librarian. The rest is how I want to promote poetry.

I think the best American poetry is the poetry that utilizes the resources of poetry rather than exploits the defects or triumphs of the poet's personality.

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 who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.

Well - I started writing - probably in the early 60s and by say '65-'66 I had read most of the poetry that had been published - certainly in the 20 years prior to that.

Some people swear by writing courses, but whether it really helps American poetry, I have doubts.

I think it comes from really liking literary forms. Poetry is very beautiful, but the space on the page can be as affecting as where the text is. Like when Miles Davis doesn't play, it has a poignancy to it.

Poetry is truth in its Sunday clothes.