Quotes About Poetry

A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language." — W. H. Auden

Whatever else it may or may not be, I want every poem I write to be a hymn in praise of the English language.

Life is fleeting and full of sorrow and no words can prevent the brave and the beautiful from dying or annihilate a grief. What poetry can do is transform the real world into an imaginary one which is godlike in its permanence and beauty, providing a picture of life which is worthy of imitation as far as it is possible.

Two hundred years from now nobody will care much about our politics. But if we were truly moved by the things that happened to us, they may read our poems.

The primary function of poetry, as of all the arts, is to make us more aware of ourselves and the world around us. I do not know if such increased awareness makes us more moral or more efficient: I hope not. I think it makes us more human, and I am quite certain it makes us more difficult to deceive, which is why, perhaps, all totalitarian theories of the State, from Plato's downwards, have deeply mistrusted the arts. They notice and say too much, and the neighbors start talking.

The public will stand, nay even enjoy, a good deal of poetry.

I'll love you till the ocean Is folded and hung up to dry And the seven stars go squawking Like geese about the sky. The years shall run like rabbits For in my arms I hold The Flower of the Ages And the first love of the world. But all the clocks in the city Began to whirr and chime: 'O let not Time deceive you, You cannot conquer Time.

Aunque sea una gran hazaña añadir algo, aunque sólo sea una pizca, a la suma del conocimiento humano, más grande todavía es añadir un pensamiento. Para un hombre, es mejor intentar ser a la vez poeta y naturalista que ser demasiado naturalista y pasar por alto la belleza de las cosas, o demasiado poeta y no entenderlas o no poder ver siquiera las bellezas escondidas que sólo se revelan tras una observación atenta.

I think there's a kind of desperate hope built into poetry now that one really wants, hopelessly, to save the world. One is trying to say everything that can be said for the things that one loves while there's still time.

The thing that makes poetry different from all other arts [is that] you're using language, which is what you use for everything else--telling lies and selling socks, advertising and conducting law. Whereas we don't write little concerti to each other, or paint pictures.

Invocation" The day hanging by its feet with a hole In its voice And the light running into the sand Here I am once again with my dry mouth At the fountain of thistles Preparing to sing.

Modern poetry, for me, began not in English at all but in Spanish, in the poems of Lorca.

If the poem has no obvious destination, there's a chance that we'll be all setting off on an interesting ride.

Roses are reddish Violets are bluish If it weren't for Christmas We'd all be Jewish.

Another Christmas PoemBlood Christmas, here again.Let us raise a loving cup:Peace on earth, goodwill to men, And make them do the washing-up.

Poetry isn't an efficient tool for preserving experience, any more than it's an efficient mode of communication, but who says that it should be efficient?

The great poet makes us feel our own wealth, and then we think less of his compositions. His best communication to our mind is to teach us to despise all he has done.

I'm terrified of switching the computer on because there are so many poems

Great poetry is always written by somebody straining to go beyond what he can do.

My self-confidence can be measured out in teaspoons mixed into my poetry, and it still always tastes funny in my mouth.

I was down in the sewer with some little lover.

Constantly risking absurdity and death whenever he performs above the heads of his audience, the poet, like an acrobat, climbs on rhyme to a high wire of his own making.

It's interesting how young poets think of death while old fogies think of girls.

Day's lustrous eyes grow heavy in sweet death.