Quotes About Poetry

Marlowe's mighty line.

Rest in soft peace, and, asked, say here doth lieBen Jonson his best piece of poetry:For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such,As what he loves may never like too much.

Sweet Swan of Avon!

The language of poetry is the exact opposite of the language of mass media," I said, meaninglessly.

All I ask the haters--and I, too, am one--is that they strive to perfect their contempt, even consider bringing it to bear on poems, where it will be deepened, not dispelled, and where, by creating a place for possibility and present absences (like unheard melodies), it might come to resemble love.

It was like how, when he read a poem to himself, the rhymes were neither sound nor silence. Unheard melodies in the mind's ear. The muted music of consciousness.

Whatever we think of particular poems, "poetry" is a word for the meeting place of the private and the public, the internal and the external: My capacity to express myself poetically and to comprehend such expression is a fundamental qualification for public recognition.

Tonight I see no spheres, but project myself and gaze back, an important trick because the goal is to be on both sides of the poem, shuttling between the you and I.

I wish all difficult poems were profound. Honk if you wish all difficult poems were profound.

Most of us carry at least a weak sense of a correlation between poetry and human possibility that cannot be realized by poems. The poet, by his very claim to be a maker of poems, is therefore both an embarrassment and accusation.

This is one underlying reason why poetry is so often met with contempt rather than mere indifference and why it is periodically denounced as opposed to simply dismissed: Most of us carry at least a weak sense of a correlation between poetry and human possibility that cannot be realized by poems. The poet, by his very claim to be a maker of poems, is therefore both an embarrassment and accusation.

Poetry" is a word for a kind of value no particular poem can realize: the value of persons, the value of human activity beyond the labor/leisure divide, a value before or beyond price. Thus hating poetry can either be a way of negatively expressing poetry as an ideal [or] it can be a defensive rage against the mere suggestion that another world, another measure of value, is possible.

he was nevertheless more in the realm of poetry than of prose, his speech stretched by speed and intensity until he felt its referential meaning dissolve into pure form.

Great poets confront the limits of actual poems, tactically defeat or at least suspend that actuality, sometimes quit writing altogether, becoming celebrated for their silence; truly horrible poets unwittingly provide a glimmer of virtual possibility via the extremity of their failure; avant-garde poets hate poems for remaining poems instead of becoming bombs; and nostalgists hate poems for failing to do what they wrongly, vaguely claim poetry once did.

I had become one because poetry, more intensely than any other practice, could not evade its anachronism and marginality and so constituted a kind of acknowledgment of my own preposterousness

Indignor quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus, often translated as "Even Homer nods.

La boca de la Nela, estéticamente hablando, era desabrida, fea; pero quizás podía merecer elogios, aplicándole el verso de Polo de Medina: «es tan linda su boca que no pide».

El verdadero amor, el sólido y durable, nace del trato; lo demás es invención de los poetas, de los músicos y demás gente holgazana.

Dime que te gustará esta vida oscura y deliciosa; que amarás esta paz campestre; que aquí te curarás de las locas efervescencias que tuban tu espíritu, y que anhelas ser una feliz y robusta villana, ricachona en medio de la sencillez y la abundancia, teniendo por maridillo al más chiflado de los artistas, al más espiritual habitante de esta tierra de luz, fecundidad y poesía.

When men and woman die, as poets sung, his heart's the last part moves, her last, the tongue.

M]y father discourag'd me by ridiculing my performances, and telling me verse-makers were generally beggars. So I escaped being a poet, most probably a very bad one.

Vol. 4: Complete Poems in English, Milton

One of the surest evidences of an elevated taste is the power of enjoying works of impassioned terrorism, in poetry, and painting. The man who can look at impassioned subjects of terror with a feeling of exultation may be certain he has an elevated taste.

Zoals de dichter Loe Yoe heeft beschreven: De wolken boven ons sluiten en scheiden zich, De bries op de binnenplaats ebt weg en keert terug. Zo is het leven, dus waarom niet alle tijd genomen? Wie kan ons weerhouden er een feest van te maken?