Poetry Quotes - Page 36

• The truth, I am convinced, is that there is no longer a poetical audience among the higher class of minds, that moral, political, and physical science have entirely withdrawn from poetry the attention of all whose attention is worth having; and that the poetical reading public being composed of the mere dregs of the intellectual community, the most sufficing passport to their favour must rest on the mixture of a little easily-intelligible portion of mawkish sentiment with an absolute negation of reason and knowledge.

  Thomas Love Peacock

  Reading, Class, Community

  Thomas Love Peacock, Herbert Francis Brett Brett-Smith (1921). “Four Ages of Poetry: Shelley's Defence of Poetry. Browning's Essay on Shelley. Edited by H.F.B. Brett-Smith”

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• Poetry is the mathematics of writing and closely kin to music.

  John Steinbeck

  Writing, Mathematics, Poetry Is

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• If a poet has any obligation toward society, it is to write well. Being in the minority, he has no other choice. Failing this duty, he sinks into oblivion. Society, on the other hand, has no obligation toward the poet. A majority by definition, society thinks of itself as having other options than reading verses, no matter how well written. Its failure to do so results in its sinking to that level of locution at which society falls easy prey to a demagogue or a tyrant. This is society's own equivalent of oblivion.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Fall, Reading, Writing

  "Less Than One: Selected Essays".

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• People cannot stand the saddest truth I know about the very nature of reading and writing imaginative literature, which is that poetry does not teach us how to talk to other people: it teaches us how to talk to ourselves. What I'm desperately trying to do is to get students to talk to themselves as though they are indeed themselves, and not someone else.

  Harold Bloom

  Reading, Writing, People

  "Falstaff for our times". www.theguardian.com. March 5, 1999.

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• Who among us has not, in moments of ambition, dreamt of the miracle of a form of poetic prose, musical but without rhythm and rhyme, both supple and staccato enough to adapt itself to the lyrical movements of our souls, the undulating movements of our reveries, and the convulsive movements of our consciences? This obsessive ideal springs above all from frequent contact with enormous cities, from the junction of their innumerable connections.

  Charles Baudelaire

  Spring, Ambition, Cities

  Charles Baudelaire (2001). “The Prose Poems and La Fanfarlo”, p.30

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• The Poet is like the prince of the clouds, who haunts the tempest and laughs at the archer. Exiled on the ground in the midst of the jeering crowd, his giant's wings keep him from walking.

  Charles Baudelaire

  Archer, Clouds, Wings

  "Selected Poems".

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• A mighty good sausage stuffer was spoiled when the man became a poet.

  Eugene Field

  Men, Sausage, He Man

  Eugene Field (1901). “The Complete Tribune Primer”

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• And hence the poet must seek to be essentially anonymous,
  He must die a little death each morning,
  He must swallow his toad and study his vomit
  as Baudelaire studied la charogne of Jeanne Duval.

  Delmore Schwartz

  Morning, Toads, Littles

  Delmore Schwartz (1989). “Last & Lost Poems”, p.53, New Directions Publishing

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• We read poetry because the poets, like ourselves, have been haunted by the inescapable tyranny of time and death; have suffered the pain of loss, and the more wearing, continuous pain of frustration and failure; and have had moods of unlooked-for release and peace. They have known and watched in themselves and others.

  Elizabeth Drew

  Pain, Loss, Frustration

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• If a poet knows more about a horse than he does about heaven, he might better stick to the horse, and some day the horse may carry him into heaven.

  Charles Ives

  Horse, Heaven, Doe

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• Poetry is a perfectly reasonable means of overcoming chaos.

  I. A. Richards

  Mean, Overcoming, Chaos

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• A poem is a form of refrigeration that stops language going bad.

  Peter Porter

  Language, Form

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• In communist countries, you execute your poets. In the free world, the poets execute themselves.

  Kate Braverman

  Country, World, Communist

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• The author of haiku should be absent, and only the haiku present.

  Anne Bancroft

  Should, Haiku, Self Glorification

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• Poets are born, not paid.

  Addison Mizner

  Poet, Born, Paid

  Oliver Herford, Ethel Watts Mumford Grant, Addison Mizner (1908). “The Cynic's Calendar of Revised Wisdom”

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• Blue jean baby, LA lady, seamstress for the band. Pretty eyed, pirate smile, you'll marry a music man. Ballerina, you must have seen her dancing in the sand.

  Elton John

  Baby, Men, Blue

  Song: Tiny Dancer

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• Bows and flows of angel hair and ice cream castles in the air and feather canyons everywhere, I've looked at clouds that way.

  Joni Mitchell

  Angel, Ice, Clouds

  Song: Both Sides Now

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• Chestnut brown canary, ruby throated sparrow, sing a song, don't be long, thrill me to the marrow.

  David Crosby

  Song, Long, Sparrows

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• Cold hearts don't bleed. Still they pray for eternity, never seeing tomorrow.

  Ja Rule

  Heart, Tomorrow, Cold

  Song: The Rule Won't Die, Album: Rule 3:36

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• Creatures crawl in search of blood to terrorize your neighborhood. And whosoever shall be found without the soul for getting down, must stand and face the hounds of hell, and rot inside a corpse's shell.

  Michael Jackson

  Blood, Soul, Faces

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• Dear one, near me, truth assessed, reborn worldwise, mind at rest. True heart sow you, God has blessed, your soul whispers, love confessed.

  George Harrison

  Blessed, Heart, Dear Ones

  Song: Dear One

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• Does the moon play only silver when it strums the galaxy?

  Joni Mitchell

  Moon, Play, Doe

  Song: Songs To Aging Children Come, Album: Clouds

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• Don't saddle me with your ideals, and spare me all your guilt. For a poet with all the answers, has never yet been built.

  Billy Bragg

  Guilt, Answers, Saddles

  Song: I Don't Need This Pressure Ron

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• Everybody nose dive, hold your breath, count to five. Back slap, booby trap, cover it up in bubble wrap. Room shake, earth quake, find a way to stay awake. It's going to blow, it's going to break, this is more than I can take.

  Peter Gabriel

  Blow, Noses, Earth

  Song: Steam, Album: Us, 1992

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• Fire up your heart for the wind is getting cold, now it always gets cold for the riders of the night. When you carry that dream when you know what lonesome is looking for a home like a bird in flight.

  Jon Stewart

  Dream, Home, Heart

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