quotations about poetry
Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.
PLATO
Ion
There is no true poet in whom fancy is not close akin to faith.
JOHN C. BAILEY
The Claims of French Poetry
Some people pretend they never were in love and never wrote poetry; two weaknesses which they dare not own -- one of the heart, the other of the mind.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of the Affections", Les Caractères
A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses.
JEAN COCTEAU
"Le Secret Professionnel", A Call to Order
I string sounds together. But to string them I have to remember a bunch of old ones I heard somewhere and then juggle them into a new rhythm and shape.
FRANK LOESSER
letter to Angel Steinbeck, A Most Remarkable Fella: Frank Loesser and the Guys and Dolls in His Life
There has never been a great poet who wasn't also a great reader of poetry.
EDWARD HIRSCH
interview, 2007
You speak
As one who fed on poetry.
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
Richelieu
The poet's is the highest type of character: other men dwell in the conventional--he chiefly abides in the universal.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
I think that believing in language -- in the ability of words to bring even an imagined reality into being -- is a big part of what it means to write poetry. If something like an idea or a belief is capable of being imagined or even described, then the possibility that it will be acted upon becomes much more likely. I think that many of my poems are attempts to take myself up on that premise, to step into conversation with voices and events that require me to decide something: what do I believe is right? What is the more subtle or subjective view of this situation? What must I challenge myself to understand?
TRACY K. SMITH
interview, Ploughshares Literary Magazine, May 30, 2012
Poetry is simply the most beautiful, impressive and wisely effective mode of saying things, and hence its importance.
MATTHEW ARNOLD
"Heinrich Heine", Essays in Criticism, First Series
Poetry never loses its appeal. Sometimes its audience wanes and sometimes it swells like a wave. But the essential mystery of being human is always going to engage and compel us. We're involved in a mystery. Poetry uses words to put us in touch with that mystery. We're always going to need it.
EDWARD HIRSCH
interview, 2007
When an exquisite poem brings one's eyes to the point of tears, those tears are not evidence of an excess of joy, they are witness far more to an exacerbated melancholy, a disposition of the nerves, a nature exiled among imperfect things, which would like to possess, without delay, a paradise revealed on this very same earth.
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
"Notes nouvelles sur Edgar Poe III", L'art romantique
No verse which is unmusical or obscure can be regarded as poetry whatever other qualities it may possess.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus: Prose Papers on Poetry
The permanent passions of mankind--love, religion, patriotism, humanitarianism, hate, revenge, ambition; the conflict between free will and fate; the rise and fall of empires--these are all great themes, and, if greatly treated, and in accordance with the essentials applicable to all poetry, may produce poetry of the loftiest kind.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
For verses and poems I can turn to true food.
ST. AUGUSTINE
Confessions
Poetry is the one thing that isn't contaminated, the one thing that isn't part of the game.
ROBERTO BOLAÑO
2666
Joyous or bereaved, poetry is the ink and paper realm of emotion.
MAGGIE GRIMASON
"The Province of the Heart", Alibi, April 28, 2016
Here! is this you on the top of Fan-ko Mountain,
Wearing a huge hat in the noon-day sun?
How thin, how wretchedly thin, you have grown!
You must have been suffering from poetry again.
LI BAI
"Addressed Humorously to Tu Fu"
The more serious poetry of the race has a philosophical structure of thought. It contains beliefs and conceptions in regard to the nature of man and the universe, God and the soul, fate and providence, suffering, evil and destiny. Great poetry always has, like the higher religion, a metaphysical content. It deals with the same august issues, experiences and conceptions as metaphysics or first philosophy.
JOSEPH ALEXANDER LEIGHTON
The Field of Philosophy
O gracious God! how far have we
Profaned thy heavenly gift of poesy!
JOHN DRYDEN
To the Pious Memory of Mrs. Anne Killegrew