Since the printing press came into being, poetry has ceased to be the delight of the whole community of man it has become the amusement and delight of the few. John Masefield
Poetry is innocent, not wise. It does not learn from experience, because each poetic experience is unique. Karl Shapiro
Poetry proceeds from the totality of man, sense, imagination, intellect, love, desire, instinct, blood and spirit together. Jacques Maritain
And inasmuch as the bridge is a symbol of all such poetry as I am interested in writing it is my present fancy that a year from now I'll be more contented working in an office than ever before. Hart Crane
To a poet the mere making of a poem can seem to solve the problem of truth, but only a problem of art is solved in poetry. Laura Riding
The end of poetry is not to create a physical condition which shall give pleasure to the mind... The end of poetry is not an after-effect, not a pleasurable memory of itself, but an immediate, constant and even unpleasant insistence upon itself. Laura Riding
Poetry brings all possible experience to the same degree: a degree in the consciousness beyond which the consciousness itself cannot go. Laura Riding
No art form points like poetry to this originality of language as to its essential and abiding concern. Thomas Harrison
Society's dark hull drifts further and further away. It is this place - the place of our separation, our distinction - that much of his poetry occupies. Tomas Transtromer
Poetry says the things that I can't say. I read a lot, but I never write it. Trevor McDonald
Conversation may be compared to a lyre with seven chords - philosophy, art, poetry, love, scandal, and the weather. Anna Jameson
Poetry is one of the few nasty childhood habits I've managed to grow out of. Tom Holt
I will not leave a corner of my consciousness covered up, but saturate myself with the strange and extraordinary new conditions of this life, and it will all refine itself into poetry later on. Isaac Rosenberg
Nobody ever told me what to read, or ever put poetry in my way. Isaac Rosenberg
If I do a poetry reading I want people to walk out and say they feel better for having been there - not because you've done a comedy performance but because you're talking about your father dying or having young children, things that touch your soul. Roger McGough
Whereas with poetry no one has to show anybody really, and you don't have to tell anyone you're doing it. Roger McGough
What she did was to open our eyes to details of country life such as teaching us names of wild flowers and getting us to draw and paint and learn poetry. Laurie Lee
Well, if this is poetry, I'm certainly never going to write any myself. James Schuyler
Poetry had far better imply things than preach them directly... in the open pulpit her voice grows hoarse and fails. F. L. Lucas