Poetry Quotes - Page 20

• What makes poetry? A full heart, brimful of one noble passion.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Passion, Heart, Noble

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, John Stuart Blackie (1883). “The Wisdom of Goethe”, Edinburgh, W. Blackwood

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• All lyrical work must, as a whole, be perfectly intelligible, but in some particulars a little unintelligible.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Littles, Lyrical, Whole

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2013). “Delphi Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Illustrated)”, p.3567, Delphi Classics

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• Isn't it curious how one has only to open a book of verse to realise immediately that it was written by a very fine poet, or else that it was written by someone who is not a poet at all. In the case of the former, the lines, the images, though they are inherent in each other, leap up and give one this shock of delight. In the case of the latter, they lie flat on the page, never having lived.

  Edith Sitwell

  Lying, Book, Giving

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• I may say that I think greed about poetry is the only permissible greed - it is, indeed, unavoidable.

  Edith Sitwell

  Thinking, Greed, May

  Edith Sitwell (Dame), John Lehmann, Derek Parker (1970). “Selected letters”, MacMillan

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• If certain critics and poetasters had their way, 'Ordinary Piety' and its child, Dullness, would be the masters of poetry.

  Edith Sitwell

  Children, Ordinary, Would Be

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• it is as unseeing to ask what is the use of poetry as it would be to ask what is the use of religion.

  Edith Sitwell

  Would Be, Use, Asks

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• A poet is a combination of an instrument and a human being in one person, with the former gradually taking over the latter. The sensation of this takeover is responsible for timbre; the realization of it, for destiny.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Destiny, Realization, Responsible

  Joseph Brodsky (2011). “Less Than One: Selected Essays”, p.177, Penguin UK

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• Poetry should be vital--either stirring our blood by its divine movements or snatching our breath by its divine perfection. To do both is supreme glory, to do either is enduring fame.

  Augustine Birrell

  Blood, Perfection, Movement

  Augustine Birrell (1885). “Obiter Dicta ...: Carlye. On the alleged obscurity of Mr. Browning's poetry. Truth-hunting. Actors. A rogue's memoirs. The via media. Falstaff [by George Radford”

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• Poetry is fact given over to imagery.

  Rod McKuen

  Facts, Given, Imagery

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• poetry is the sung voice of accurate perception.

  Patricia Hampl

  Voice, Perception, Accurate

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• The materials of true poetry are always humble, absolutely idiosyncratic, the autobiographical tatters that, in gifted hands, are made into the memoir that fits us all.

  Patricia Hampl

  Humble, Hands, Fit

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• Poetry is the apotheosis of sentiment.

  Madame de Stael

  Apotheosis, Poetry Is, Sentiments

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• We always cut our poetical theories to suit our talent.

  Madame de Stael

  Cutting, Suits, Talent

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• Poetry interprets in two ways: it interprets by expressing, with magical felicity, the physiognomy and movements of the outward world; and it interprets by expressing, with inspired conviction, the ideas and laws of the inward world of man's moral and spiritual nature. In other words, poetry is interpretative both by having natural magic in it, and by having moral profundity.

  Matthew Arnold

  Spiritual, Men, Law

  Matthew Arnold (1875). “Essays in Criticism”, p.128, London : [s.n.]

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• Though we do not have many poets, we certainly have more than we deserve, for we deserve none at all. It is ourselves that we are hurting by our stupidity and ignorance of poetry.

  Elizabeth Janeway

  Hurt, Ignorance, Stupidity

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• I tell poets that when a line just floats into your head, don't pay attention 'cause it probably has floated into somebody else's head.

  Gwendolyn Brooks

  Lines, Pay, Causes

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• religion is poetry, - poetry is religion.

  Marie Corelli

  Poetry Is

  Marie Corelli (2004). “Wormwood: A Drama of Paris”, p.104, Broadview Press

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• I always say that one's poetry is a solace to oneself and a nuisance to one's friends.

  Hortense Calisher

  Nuisance, Solace, Oneself

  Hortense Calisher (2013). “The Collected Stories of Hortense Calisher”, p.629, Open Road Media

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• Poetry is the connecting link between body and mind.

  Camille Paglia

  Mind, Links, Body

  Camille Paglia (2018). “Free Women, Free Men: Sex, Gender, Feminism”, p.46, Canongate Books

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• What shall I say about poetry? What shall I say about those clouds, or about the sky? Look; look at them; look at it! And nothing more. Don't you understand anything about poetry? Leave that to the critics and the professors. For neither you, nor I, nor any poet knows what poetry is.

  Federico Garcia Lorca

  Clouds, Sky, Looks

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• Outrage and possibility are in all the poems we know.

  Muriel Rukeyser

  Possibility, Outrage, Knows

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• The universe of poetry is the universe of emotional truth. Our material is in the way we feel and the way we remember.

  Muriel Rukeyser

  Emotional, Way, Remember

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• Poetry is a dumb Buddha who thinks a donkey is as important as a diamond.

  Natalie Goldberg

  Thinking, Dumb, Important

  Natalie Goldberg (1990). “Wild Mind: Living the Writer's Life”, Bantam

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• Poems are taught as though the poet has put a secret key in his words and it is the reader's job to find it. Poems are not mystery novels.

  Natalie Goldberg

  Jobs, Keys, Secret

  Natalie Goldberg (2016). “Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within”, p.38, Shambhala Publications

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• The poem is always the last resort. In it the poet makes a world in little, and finds peace, even though, under complete focused emotion, the evocation be far more bitter than reality, or far more lovely.

  Louise Bogan

  Reality, Lovely, World

  Louise Bogan, Ruth Limmer (1981). “Journey around my room: the autobiography of Louise Bogan : a mosaic”, Viking Pr

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