A poem might be defined as thinking about feelings - about human feelings and frailties. Anne Stevenson on poetry
Each word bears its weight, so you have to read my poems quite slowly. Anne Stevenson on poetry
We all write poems it is simply that poets are the ones who write in words. John Fowles on poetry
There'll always be working people in my poems because I grew up with them, and I am a poet of memory. Philip Levine on poetry
One will never again look at a birch tree, after the Robert Frost poem, in exactly the same way. Paul Muldoon on poetry
You don't help people in your poems. I've been trying to help people all my life - that's my trouble. Charles Olson on poetry
Wanted: a needle swift enough to sew this poem into a blanket. Charles Simic on poetry
A poem conveys not a message so much as the provenance of a message, an advent of sense. Thomas Harrison on poetry
However, if a poem can be reduced to a prose sentence, there can't be much to it. James Schuyler on poetry
How do poems grow? They grow out of your life. Robert Penn Warren on poetry
The poem is the point at which our strength gave out. Richard Rosen on poetry
Poetry is an orphan of silence. The words never quite equal the experience behind them. Charles Simic on poetry
Poetry is plucking at the heartstrings, and making music with them. Dennis Gabor on poetry
Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas. Albert Einstein on poetry
All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry. Edgar Allan Poe on poetry
When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses. John F. Kennedy on poetry
Listen, real poetry doesn't say anything it just ticks off the possibilities. Opens all doors. You can walk through anyone that suits you. Jim Morrison on poetry
I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled poets to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean. Socrates on poetry
If my poetry aims to achieve anything, it's to deliver people from the limited ways in which they see and feel. Jim Morrison on poetry
Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular. Aristotle on poetry