Quotes About Poetry

There are so many things that poetry is about, one of which is memory.

It is a way we reassess our past. We can do that in poetry in ways we can't do in prose.

And there are a lot more people reading poetry, but there are not so many people reading an individual poet.

Poetry was invented as an mnemonic device to enable people to remember their prayers.

Poetry should be able to reach everybody, and it should be able to appeal to all levels of understanding.

Dealing with poetry is a daunting task, simply because the reason one does it as an editor at all is because one is constantly coming to terms with one's own understanding of how to understand the world.

They need to learn poetry. They don't need to learn about poetry. They don't need to be told how to interpret poetry. They don't need to be told how to understand poetry. They need to learn it.

But for me, being an editor I've been an editor of all kinds of books being an editor of poetry has been the way in which I could give a crucial part of my time to what I love most.

The feeling for words comes at an early age--or rather it is lost in most cases at any early age, leaving the rest poets" (170).

My poetry is who I am down to the core, even though I do not write autobiographical verse. I have built a syntax and a language to understand myself in the world."—Peter Gizzi

What he loved about poetry: it could do in a few seconds what a novel did in days. A painting could be like that, too, and a sculpture. But sometimes you wanted something to take days and days.

I flipped through the Duino Elegies

My favorite poem, the one by Li Shang-Yin: When Will I Be Home? When will I be home? I don't know. In the mountains, in the rainy night, The Autumn lake is flooded. Someday we will be back together again. We will sit in the candlelight by the West window. And I will tell you how I remembered you Tonight on the stormy mountain.

This is Solomonís Song of Songs.

How beautiful you are, my darling! Oh, how very beautiful! Your eyes are like doves.

How beautiful you are, my darling—how very beautiful! Your eyes are like doves behind your veil. Your hair is like a flock of goats streaming down Mount Gilead.

Your lips are like a scarlet ribbon, and your mouth is lovely. Your brow behind your veil is like a slice of pomegranate.

Your breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle grazing among the lilies.

Your navel is a rounded goblet; it never lacks blended wine. Your waist is a mound of wheat encircled by the lilies.

Your breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle.

Your neck is like a tower made of ivory; your eyes are like the pools of Heshbon by the gate of Bath-rabbim; your nose is like the tower of Lebanon, facing toward Damascus.