Poetry Quotations

Poetry is for evoking meanings also.

❦❦❦❦

People are drawn to poetry . . . Its condensed language speaks directly to the heart . . . often in a few words or lines. - Mark Mussari, 2003, 6)

Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful. - Rita Dove

Imaginative poetry produces a far greater mental strain than novels . . . and teaches the highest form of wisdom. - Arnold Bennett

Poetry is what in a poem makes you laugh, cry, prickle, be silent, makes your toe nails twinkle, makes you want to do this or that or nothing, makes you know that you are alone in the unknown world, that your bliss and suffering is forever shared and forever all your own. - Dylan Thomas

The worst tragedy for a poet is to be admired through being misunderstood. - Jean Cocteau

Poetry is the overflowing of the Soul. - Henry Theodore Tuckerman

A poet is . . . never able to compose until he has become inspired. - Plato

The words never quite equal the experience behind them. - Charles Simic

You're seeing metaphors when a poem speak of one thing as being another, even though literally those two things aren't the same. - Cf. Poetry Center

Poetry is good for unleashing images. - Paula Rego

To be a poet is a condition, not a profession. - Robert Frost