Quotes About Poetry

A long poem is a test of invention which I take to be the Polar star of poetry, as fancy is the sails, and imagination the rudder.

Not till the poets among us can be "literalists of the imagination"-above insolence and triviality and can present for inspection, "imaginary gardens with real toads in them." shall we have it.

Aspirations don't make poets, perseverance does. Flow with the emotions, let your imagination soar, find what ignites the fire within and let it go wild.

Nations are born in the hearts of poets, they prosper and die in the hands of politicians.

Only truthful hands write true poems. I cannot see any basic difference between a handshake and a poem.

There's so much to be grateful for, words are poor things.

Your date will not be impressed by you throwing up on her brand-new shoes, as you spout poetic babblings that are meaningful only to you.

All poetic inspiration is but dream interpretation.

The engineers of the future will be poets.

Never weather-beaten sail more willing bent to shore.

The one man in the room who was as big as his poems, huge, with hulk and dynamic chunks of words.

some of the best music was composed by Beethovan, but he was deaf, some of the best poetry of nature was written by Milton, but he was deaf.possible is always inside the impossible...

An ideal scientist thinks like a poet and only later works like a book-keeper.

after I published a paper showing that suicidal poets used pronouns differently from non-suicidal poets, a slightly inebriated poet threatened me with a butter knife at a party in my own home.

eyes." I had passed in the wrong note-book. I don't think I have felt greater embarrassment in my whole life than I did at that moment. I was ashamed not only that my teacher should see this nakedness of my heart, but that she should find out that I had any knowledge of such affairs. It did not then occur to me to be ashamed of the kind of poetry I had written.

Temperamentally, he belonged to that class of poets who Taine says are vessels too weak to contain the spirit of poetry, the poets whom poetry kills, the Byrons, the Burns's, the De Mussets, the Poes.

O, de light-bugs glimmer down de lane,   Merlindy! Merlindy! O, de whip'-will callin' notes ur pain—   Merlindy, O, Merlindy!

O black and unknown bards of long ago, How came your lips to touch the sacred fire?

Like butterflies in Spring Poetry awakens the Spirit, stirs the imagination and explores the possibilities with each stroke of its rhythmic wings.

I hear there are people who actually enjoy moving. Sounds like a disease to me - they must be unstable. Though it does have it's poetry, I'll allow that. When an old dwelling starts looking desolate, a mixture of regret and anxiety comes over us and we feel like we are leaving a safe harbor for the rolling sea. As for the new place, it looks on us with alien eyes, it has nothing to say to us, it is cold.

And, I mean, I think poetry does need to be met to some extent, especially, I guess, 19th century poetry, and for me, it's just been so worth the effort. It's like I'm planting a garden in my head.

As for how criticism of Keats' poetry relates to criticism of my own work, I'll leave that for others to decide.

I've heard them lilting, at the ewe milking,Lasses a' lilting, before dawn of day;But now they are moaning, on ilka green loaning;The flowers of the forest are a' wede away.

On the whole I think poems don't crawl out of dreams. They are knocked out of rocks.