quotations about poetry
Good poets burn their early poetry, and bad poets publish it.
UMBERTO ECO
The Paris Review, summer 2008
A poet does not work by square or line.
WILLIAM COWPER
Conversation
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
Written poetry is worth reading once, and then should be destroyed. Let the dead poets make way for others. Then we might even come to see that it is our veneration for what has already been created, however beautiful and valid it may be, that petrifies us.
ANTONIN ARTAUD
The Theater and Its Double
A true poet comes among us only once in a generation, sometimes not once in a century, and ... certain civilized nations never produce a great poet. We suffer from dearth of poets, not from lack of love for poetry.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Only poetry can measure the distance between ourselves and the Other.
CHARLES SIMIC
The Unemployed Fortune-Teller
Poetry: three mismatched shoes at the entrance of a dark alley.
CHARLES SIMIC
Dime-Store Alchemy
The emperor would prefer the poet to keep away from politics, the emperor's domain, so that he can manage things the way he likes.
CHINUA ACHEBE
Conjunctions, Fall 1991
He that would earn the Poet's sacred name,
Must write for future as for present ages.
CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH
"The Poet"
Poetry is either something that lives like fire inside you--like music to the musician or Marxism to the Communist--or else it is nothing, an empty formalized bore around which pedants can endlessly drone their notes and explanations.
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
letter to "Scottie" Fitzgerald, August 3, 1940
Poesy is a part of learning in measure of words, for the most part restrained, but in all other points extremely licensed, and doth truly refer to the imagination; which, being not tied to the laws of matter, may at pleasure join that which nature hath severed, and sever that which nature hath joined, and so make unlawful matches and divorces of things.
FRANCIS BACON
The Advancement of Learning
Poetry is the other way of using language.
HOWARD NEMEROV
Reflexions on Poetry & Politics
Is poetry more important than politics? In a practical sense, probably not, but people have different perspectives and will place their values accordingly. I know I couldn't munch through metaphors if I was half-starved and shivering on the streets - though I'd probably give it a go. Still, as someone pointed out, a brew does taste better with a spoonful of sugar and a splash of semi-skimmed than with a dash of Dylan Thomas.
JADE CUTTLE
"A plate of poetry, please: Is poetry more important than politics?", Varsity Online, May 3, 2016
O gracious God! how far have we
Profaned thy heavenly gift of poesy!
JOHN DRYDEN
To the Pious Memory of Mrs. Anne Killegrew
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
Joyous or bereaved, poetry is the ink and paper realm of emotion.
MAGGIE GRIMASON
"The Province of the Heart", Alibi, April 28, 2016
Poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry.
MARY OLIVER
A Poetry Handbook
Poetry is prose in slow motion.
NICHOLSON BAKER
The Anthologist
A poet can survive everything but a misprint.
OSCAR WILDE
"The Children of the Poets", Pall Mall Gazette, October 14, 1886
I don't think good poetry can be produced in a kind of political attempt to overthrow some existing form. I think it just supersedes. People find a way in which they can say something. "I can't say it that way, what way can I find that will do?"
T. S. ELIOT
The Paris Review, spring-summer 1959