The romanticised life, where all the great poetry and music and art of the world comes from, is great but it requires a lot of self-indulgence. Laura Marling on poetry
The great function of poetry is to give back to us the situations of our dreams. Gaston Bachelard on poetry
Poetry is one of the destinies of speech... One would say that the poetic image, in its newness, opens a future to language. Gaston Bachelard on poetry
In Australia, not reading poetry is the national pastime. Phyllis McGinley on poetry
The office of poetry is not to make us think accurately, but feel truly. Frederick William Robertson on poetry
The tradition of Russian literature is also an eastern tradition of learning poetry and prose by heart. Ryszard Kapuscinski on poetry
I don't think you get to good writing unless you expose yourself and your feelings. Deep songs don't come from the surface they come from the deep down. The poetry and the songs that you are suppose to write, I believe are in your heart. Judy Collins on poetry
A group of us started a community center in Santa Monica. We've tried different programs, and three have worked really well. A poetry group. Once a week we visit Venice High and talk to girls at risk. Lisa Bonet on poetry
Gil Thorpe is a great diversion and is to book writing as poetry is to prose. Jerry B. Jenkins on poetry
The music just tends to be a vehicle for that poetry. Mark Knopfler on poetry
It's just poetry, beauty and love. How hard can that be to act? Robin Wright Penn on poetry
I have experienced healing through other writers' poetry, but there's no way I can sit down to write in the hope a poem will have healing potential. If I do, I'll write a bad poem. Marilyn Hacker on poetry
When you translate poetry in particular, you're obliged to look at how the writer with whom you're working puts together words, sentences, phrases, the triple tension between the line of verse, the syntax and the sentence. Marilyn Hacker on poetry
Poetry seems to have been eliminated as a literary genre, and installed instead, as a kind of spiritual aerobic exercise - nobody need read it, but anybody can do it. Marilyn Hacker on poetry
An experienced reader uses the poem as an agent of inquiry. This makes poetry very exciting, unstable, and interactive. John Barton on poetry
Poetry is but another form of inquiry into the nature of phenomena, using with its own unique procedures and tools. John Barton on poetry
In the past, poetry came in the form of spells and chants used to effect change. John Barton on poetry
If poetry alters the way in which the reader views the world, then it has had its desired effect. John Barton on poetry
My obsession with time informs my poetry so completely it is hard for me to summarize it. We want time to pass, for new things to happen to us, we want to hold on to certain moments, we don't want our lives to end. John Barton on poetry
I can find some way to make poetry out of my life's experiences. Shelby Lynne on poetry