There are distinct duties of a poet laureate. I plan a reading series at the Library of Congress and advise the librarian. The rest is how I want to promote poetry. Rita Dove on poetry
I was apprehensive. I feared every time I talked about poetry, it would be filtered through the lens of race, sex, and age. Rita Dove on poetry
I see a resurgence of interest in poetry. I am less optimistic about the prospects for the arts when it comes to federal funding. Rita Dove on poetry
The poetry that sustains me is when I feel that, for a minute, the clouds have parted and I've seen ecstasy or something. Rita Dove on poetry
By the general process of epic poetry, I mean the way this form of art has constantly responded to the profound needs of the society in which it was made. Lascelles Abercrombie on poetry
Epic poetry exhibits life in some great symbolic attitude. It cannot strictly be said to symbolize life itself, but always some manner of life. Lascelles Abercrombie on poetry
If epic poetry is a definite species, the sagas do not fall within it. Lascelles Abercrombie on poetry
That is to say, epic poetry has been invented many times and independently but, as the needs which prompted the invention have been broadly similar, so the invention itself has been. Lascelles Abercrombie on poetry
The reason can only be this: heroic poetry depends on an heroic age, and an age is heroic because of what it is, not because of what it does. Lascelles Abercrombie on poetry
Traditional matter must be glorified, since it would be easier to listen to the re-creation of familiar stories than to quite new and unexpected things the listeners, we must remember, needed poetry chiefly as the re-creation of tired hours. Lascelles Abercrombie on poetry
Rap is poetry to music, like beatniks without beards and bongos. David Lee Roth on poetry
I really enjoy English and poetry and writing classes. Taylor Momsen on poetry
As civilization advances, poetry almost necessarily declines. Thomas B. Macaulay on poetry
I'm conscious of a series of circles working its way through my life. And at this particular moment I have come round to the beginning of my writing cycle. It begins with poetry. There's hardly a day that goes past on which I don't write poetry. Ben Okri on poetry
Poetry is above all a concentration of the power of language, which is the power of our ultimate relationship to everything in the universe. Adrienne Rich on poetry
Prose on certain occasions can bear a great deal of poetry on the other hand, poetry sinks and swoons under a moderate weight of prose. Walter Savage Landor on poetry
What other people may find in poetry or art museums, I find in the flight of a good drive. Arnold Palmer on poetry
For me, poetry is a situation - a state of being, a way of facing life and facing history. Tahar Ben Jelloun on poetry
Poetry is not only a set of words which are chosen to relate to each other it is something which goes much further than that to provide a glimpse of our vision of the world. Tahar Ben Jelloun on poetry
Poetry is a form of mathematics, a highly rigorous relationship with words. Tahar Ben Jelloun on poetry