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Poetry Quotes
"Poetry is the impish attempt to paint the color of the wind."
17
"I bought you love poetry! 'I love you as certain dark things are loved, secretly, between the shadow and the soul.' I blink at him. 'Neruda. I starred the passage. God,' he moans. 'Why didn't you open it?"
17
"For awhile after you quit Keats all other poetry seems to be only whistling or humming."
16
"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."
16
"Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!"
16
"Ah earth you old extinguisher."
16
"But here there is no light, Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy waysI cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet..Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves."
16
"I once began to ask around what constitutes a good poem. It felt petty, in a sense. A boy would need no help in deciding which girls he thinks are pretty."
16
"Some say they see poetry in my paintings; I see only science."
16
"I can write no stately proemAs a prelude to my lay;From a poet to a poemI would dare to say.For if of these fallen petalsOne to you seem fair,Love will waft it till it settlesOn your hair.And when wind and winter hardenAll the loveless land,It will whisper of the garden,You will understand."
16
"Journey's endIn western lands beneath the SunThe flowers may rise in Spring,The trees may bud, the waters run,The merry finches sing.Or there maybe 'tis cloudless night,And swaying branches bearThe Elven-stars as jewels whiteAmid their branching hair.Though here at journey's end I lieIn darkness buried deep,Beyond all towers strong and high,Beyond all mountains steep,Above all shadows rides the SunAnd Stars for ever dwell:I will not say the Day is done,Nor bid the Stars farewell.J."
16
"Will the veiled sister pray for Those who walk in darkness, who chose thee and oppose thee, Those who are torn on the horn between season and season, time and time, between Hour and hour, word and word, power and power, those who wait In darkness? Will the veiled sister pray For children at the gate Who will not go away and cannot pray: Pray for those who chose and oppose."
16
"A tough life needs a tough language-and that is what poetry is. That is what literature offers-a language powerful enough to say how it is."
16
"I don't think of poetry as a 'rational' activity but as an aural one. My poems usually begin with words or phrases which appeal more because of their sound than their meaning, and the movement and phrasing of a poem are very important to me."
16
"Sometimes poets expect me to think far deeper than I'm willing to dig."
16
"A chronic poet should always be an inveterate nature-lover."
15
"He fertilizes a phrase or a line of poetry for weeks and then gives birth to it in a speech."
15
"I guess the thing that I'm most proud of is that I kept on writing poetry. I understand that poetry is sort of the source of everything I do. It's the source of my creativity."
15
"Dig anywhere in the earth and you will find a treasure, only you must dig with the faith of a peasant."
15
"Death, like a host, comes smiling to the door;Smiling, he greets us, on that tranquil shoreWhere neither piping bird nor peeping dawnDisturbs the eternal sleep,But in the stillness far withdrawnOur dreamless rest for evermore we keep."
15
"All things left her, allBut one. Her highborn courtlinessAccompanied her to the end,Beyond the rapture and its eclipse,In a way like an angel's. Of ElviraThe first thing that I saw - such years ago -Was her smile and also it was the last."
15
"Poetry involves the mysteries of the irrational perceived through rational words."
15
"We traveled long and forgot why poetry was invented."
15
"Come let us haste, the stars grow high, But night sits monarch yet in the mid sky."
15
"The words of the true poems give you more than poems, they give you to form for yourself poems, religions, politics, war, peace, behavior, histories, essays, daily life, & everything else, they balance the ranks, colors, races, creeds, and the sexes, they do not seek beauty, they are sought, forever touching them or close upon them follows beauty, longing, fain, love-sick. They prepare for death, yet they are not the finish, but rather the outset, they bring none of his or her terminus or to be content & full, whom they take they take into space to behold the birth of the stars, to learn one of the meanings, to launch off with absolute faith, to sweep through the ceaseless rings & never be quiet again."
15
"For Mercy has a human heart;Pity, a human face;And Love, the human form divine:And Peace the human dress.Songs of InnocenceCruelty has a human heartAnd jealousy a human face,Terror the human form divine,And secrecy the human dress.The human dress is forged iron,The human form a fiery forge,The human face a furnace seal'd,The human heart its hungry gorge.Songs of Experience - This poem was discovered posthumously."
15
"Poets are simply those who have made a profession ans a lifestyle of being in touch with their bliss."
15
"When you write in prose you say what you mean. When you write in rhyme you say what you must."
15
"I didn't start off as a journalist; I started off as a poet. My ambition was to practise poetry. Then I found journalism, but that other voice never fled from me."
15
"Herman has taken to writing poetry. You need not tell anyone, for you know how such things get around."
15
"For with his little secret that he cannot divulge, the poet buys this power of the word to tell everybody else's dark secrets. A poet is not an apostle; he drives out devils only by the power of the devil."
14
"Poetry = Anger x Imagination."
14
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