On Poetry Quotes

Each of us has his own alphabet with which to create poetry.

Poetry makes possible the deepest kind of personal possession of the world.

As music is the poetry of sound, so is painting the poetry of sight and the subject-matter has nothing to do with harmony of sound or of color.

I am from the Mediterranean area, I have to feel everything. I am a physical person, but I guess that things that you cannot touch and cannot see are also touchable and visible—light, poetry, music.

If more politicians knew poetry, and more poets knew politics, I am convinced the world would be a little better place in which to live.

Poetry begins as the divine speech of the bicameral mind. Then, as the bicameral mind breaks down, there remain prophets.

Poetry is not a code to be broken but a way of seeing with the eyes shut.

Take your materials from what is around you - if you see a dandelion, write about that; if it's misty, write about the mist. The materials for poetry are all about you in profusion.

Poetry is a lyrical insinuation. Often, its melodic subtlety kisses the subconscious mind.

If there were no poetry on any day in the world, poetry would be invented that day. For there would be an intolerable hunger.

Vowels are the most illuminated letters in the alphabet. Vowels are the colors and souls of poetry and speech. (1976 Penthouse interview)

The point of poetry is to be acutely discomforting, to prod and provoke, to poke us in the eye, to punch us in the nose, to knock us off our feet, to take our breath away.

I'm a professional and I'll do anything - a poetry reading, television, cinema, anything that allows me to act.

Happiness. It comes on unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really, any early morning talk about it.

Poetry is music written for the human voice.

We learn what poetry is - if we ever learn - by reading it.

Poetry is the apotheosis of sentiment.

The poet makes silk dresses out of worms.

There has been a vast output of critical studies in contemporary poetry, some of them first rate, but I do not think that , as a rule, a poet should read them.

Poetry has been the longest pleasure of my life.

Poetry helps me understand who I am. It helps me understand the world around me. But above all, what poetry has taught me is the fact that I need to embrace mystery in order to be completely human.

One impulse from a vernal wood May teach you more of man, Of moral evil and of good, Than all the sages can.

Why are there trees I never walk under but large and melodious thoughts descend upon me?

I wish I was either in your arms full of faith, or that a Thunder bolt would strike me.

The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality.

If you are good, they say you are weak.

If you want to annoy a poet, explain his poetry.

The dance can reveal everything mysterious that is hidden in music, and it has the additional merit of being human and palpable. Dancing is poetry with arms and legs.

A world without poetry and art would be too much like one without birds or flowers: bearable but a lot less enjoyable.

I will walk by myself and cure myself in the sunshine and the wind.

The dancing vortex of a sacred metaphor clashes horns and halos to make wounded music set to the tempo of a new era in brilliant labor.

All poetry has to do is to make a strong communication. All the poet has to do is listen. The poet is not an important fellow. There will also be another poet.

Anger is easier than forgiveness.

We must listen to poets.

A poet should be so crafty with words that he is envied even for his pains.

Poetry is the language of extremity. Poetry is a transfer of potency. You feel something potent and then you transfer it onto the page.

Where there are many beauties in a poem I shall not cavil at a few faults proceeding either from negligence or from the imperfection of our nature.

Soho has got to be at its centre. It's got such a history for rock, pop, poetry, jazz, writers, all those things, and I think it should be valued as such, and protected as this centre for bohemia.

Rumi is astounding, fertile, abundant, almost more an excitable library of poetry than a person.

Poetry is mostly hunches.

Any work that is not rooted in myth and poetry or that does not partake of the depth and essence of the universe is merely a ghost.

One must write poetry in such as way that if one threw the poem in a window, the pane would break.

Sexual activity is driven by the same aims and motives as reading poetry or listening to music: to escape the limitations imposed by the need for particularity in the consciousness.

I learned that to be amusing was not to be frivolous and that language - always the language - was the magic key as much to prose as to poetry.

Novels are about other people and poems are about yourself.

I thought we were gonna open up the world of poetry and music to all kinds of things, and yet, I can't really think of anyone who's done anything like it since.

I still think the revolution is to make the world safe for poetry, meandering, for the frail and vulnerable, the rare and obscure, the impractical and local and small.

Theater is far superior to film in poetry, in abstract poetry.

Romance like a ghost escapes touching; it is always where you are not, not where you are. The interview or conversation was prose at the time, but it is poetry in the memory.

The poet speaks adequately only when he speaks somewhat wildly... not with intellect alone, but with intellect inebriated by nectar.