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"What is poetry which does not save nations or people?"

Czeslaw Milosz, Polish Poet

Poetry, People, Nations

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"What is poetry which does not save nations or people?"

Exlpore more Poetry quotes

"Whereas with poetry no one has to show anybody really, and you don't have to tell anyone you're doing it."

Roger McGough, British Poet

"Poetry, even when apparently most fantastic, is always a revolt against artifice, a revolt, in a sense, against actuality."

James Joyce, Irish Novelist

"The young people have MTV and rock and roll. Why would they go to read poetry? Poetry belongs to the Stone Age. It awakens in us perceptions that go back to those times."

Robert Morgan, American Soldier

Poetry, Age, People, Perceptions

"I don't think American poetry has gotten any better in the past 35 years. Oddly enough, creative writing programs seem to have been good for fiction, and I would not have predicted that."

Robert Morgan, American Soldier

Poetry, Fiction, Past

"Writing poetry makes you intensely conscious of how words sound, both aloud and inside the head of the reader. You learn the weight of words and how they sound to the ear."

Helen Dunmore, British Poet

Poetry, Sound, Weight, Words

"You know, people speak in poetry all the time. They just don't realize it."

Sherman Alexie, American Writer

Poetry, Language, Expression, Awareness

"I would say that American poetry has always been a poetry of personal testimony."

Mark Strand, American Poet

"But I don't think that poetry is a good, to use a contemporary word, venue, for current events."

Diane Wakoski, American Poet

Poetry, Events, Word

"A great many people seem to think writing poetry is worthwhile, even though it pays next to nothing and is not as widely read as it should be."

Mark Strand, American Poet

Poetry, People, Nothing, Writing

"In the grueling light that passed for day..."

Cormac McCarthy, American Writer

Poetry, Light, Life, Description

Explore more quotes by Czeslaw Milosz

"Human material seems to have one major defect: it does not like to be considered merely as human material. It finds it hard to endure the feeling that it must resign itself to passive acceptance of changes introduced from above."

"At the entrance, my bare feet on the dirt floor, Here, gusts of heat; at my back, white clouds. I stare and stare. It seems I was called for this: To glorify things just because they are."

"Grow your tree of falsehood from a small grain of truth. Do not follow those who lie in contempt of reality. Let your lie be even more logical than the truth itself, so the weary travelers may find repose."

"The voice of passion is better than the voice of reason. The passionless cannot change history."

"It is impossible to communicate to people who have not experienced it the undefinable menace of total rationalism."

"What is poetry which does not save nations or people?"

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