Quotes About Poetry

What poets must seem to display, besides the objects imitated, is a beautiful negligence.

poetry returns to us from the depths of a wounded psyche, no longer in harmony with the world—and following this road we will meet up with Baudelaire and much of modern poetry.

Alle sembianze il Padre, alle amene sembianze eterno regno diè alle genti; e per virili imprese, per dotta lira o canto, virtù non luce in disadorno ammanto.

The most sublime labour of poetry is to give sense and passion to insensate things; and it is characteristic of children to take inanimate things in their hands and talk to them in play as if they were living persons... This philological-philosophical axiom proves to us that in the world's childhood men were by nature sublime poets...

Zanzotto ricorda che la nonna dialettofona, la nonna popolana recitava a lui piccolo versi familiari del Tasso, e quell'armonia del toscano illustre filtrava nella sua coscienza come "una vera e propria droga fonica, sopra il continuum un po' selvatico della parlata dialettale".

La poesia appare come il luogo della ricerca ideale delle "parole giuste". In realtà la poesia è proprio il luogo in cui vengono a mancare le parole. È proprio da qui, da questa insufficienza, da questa mancanza - di bellezza, di giustizia, di felicità, di coraggio e chissà di che altro - da questa miseria delle parole nel tempo della nostra vita, che inizia il movimento della poesia.

We can't be ambassadors because we don't have a country. Puerto Rico is not a country with any power in the world, I won't be considered a great poet. Spain created great poets with its empire and made them known around the world through its empire. Great poetry has always stemmed from the economic prosperity of a people. That is why we have Quevedo and Gongora.

Vergil preferred to give a few touches, and to allow the imagination of his readers to fill out the picture: that is one reason for his almost universal appeal. He changes each of his readers into a poet or an artist.

All slang is metaphor, and all metaphor is poetry.

The higher Greek poetry did not make up fictitious plots its business was to express the heroic saga, the myths.

Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle and end. Like my life, this book has ambiguity. Like my life, this book is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity, as Joanna said.

Mon pays ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver.

Despite humanity's grisly history of war, famine, disease, corruption—despite the fact that not just death but pain and suffering and debilitation are fundamental parts of the human experience—our musicians, our filmmakers, our poets, and even our laws remain profoundly preoccupied with questions of love. Love is not a thing to be trifled with.

Gioconda aborda temas femeninos como la menarquía, menstruación y menopausia. Hace alusión al desorden hormonal en una prosa poética. Aborda además, el cansancio de un matrimonio de 26 años, un esposo exitoso y una mujer que busca su propia identidad. Ambos cometen infidelidad.

Uma obra crítica ou filosófica, que não se mantenha de alguma maneira numa relação essencial com a criação, está condenada a girar no vazio, do mesmo modo que uma obra de arte ou de poesia, que não contenha em si uma exigência crítica, está destinada ao esquecimento.

Le transport rythmique, qui donne au vers son élan, est vide, il n'est que le transport de lui-même. Et c'est ce vide que la césure pense et tient en suspens, en tant que parole pure, pendant le bref instant où s'arrête le cheval de la poésie.

For poetry there exists neither large countries nor small. Its domain is in the heart of all men.

Entonces Don Quijote comprendió de qué clase de paño estaban hechas las mujeres, sin excluir las que parecen angelicales, y cobró odio hasta contra la poesía que tan poca ayuda le había prestado

Las ciudades desiertas o desenterradas son incomparablemente más bellas que las vivas.

Bellacoglienza era rimasta sola, e si stringeva nel suo lettino. Era felice di essere sola. Dante Alighieri, quante parole gli aveva sentito mormorare, quante sciocchezze sussurrano gli uomini in quel momento. Era un poeta importante, le aveva detto qualcuno. Chissà.

Of this poetry I'm left with the emptiness of an endless secret

Tonight A parapet of breeze tonight on which to lean my melancholy

Tra un fiore colto e l' altro donato l' inesprimibile nulla

The poet goes there then returns to the light with his songs and scatters them Of this poetry there remains to me that nothing of inexhaustible secrecy.