Poets on Poetry

Who know more about poetry than the poets themselves? Their readers, poetry teachers, you say? Perhaps, but following are a series of terrific quotes from poets, politicians, and other luminary figures.

Poetry is an act of peace.
Peace goes into the making
of a poet
as flour
goes into the making
of bread.

Pablo Neruda (1874-1973)

When power narrows
the areas of man's concern,
poetry reminds him
of the richness and diversity
of his existence.
When power corrupts,
poetry cleanses.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963)


Poets were the first teachers
of mankind.

Horace (65-8 BC)


Most people do not believe
in anything very much,
and our greatest poetry
is given to us by those
that do.

Cyril Connolly (1903- )


The world seems always waiting
for its new poets.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)


Poets alone
are permitted to tell
the real truth.

Horace Walpole (1717-1797)


Poetry is the impish attempt
to paint the color
of the wind.

Max Bodenheim (1893-1954)


Poetry is
the opening and closing
of a door,
leaving those who look through
to guess about what is seen
at that moment.

Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)


My verse represents a handle
I can grasp
in order not to yield
to the centrifugal forces
which are trying to throw me
off the world.

Ogden Nash (1902-1971)


Poetry is a perfectly possible means
of overcoming chaos.

I.A. Richards (1893-1979)


Since the printing press came into being
poetry has ceased to be
the delight of the whole community
of man;
it has become
the amusement and delight
of the few.

John Masefield (1878-1967)


Sad is his lot,
who,
once at least in his life,
has not been a poet.

Alponse De Lamartine (1790-1869)


A true poet is a friendly man.
He takes to his arms
even cold and inanimate things,
and rejoices
in his heart.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)


I am overwhelmed
by the beautiful disorder
of poetry,
the eternal virginity
of words.

Theodore Roethke (1908-1963)


It is a great fault,
in descriptive poetry,
to describe everything.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744)


A poet is,
before anything else,
a person who is
passionately in love
with language.

W.H. Auden (1907-1973)


We are all poets
when we read a poem well.

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881)


Do not commit your poems
to pages alone.
Sing them,
I pray you.

Virgil (70-19 BC)


In a poem
the word should be as pleasing
to the ear
as the meaning is
to the mind.

Marianne Moore (1887-1972)


Poetry is the music
of thought,
conveyed to us
in the music
of language.

Paul Chatfield (1779-1849)


Take care of the sounds
and the sense will take care
of itself.

Lewis Carroll (1832-1898)

The man that hath no music
in his soul
can indeed
never be a geniune poet.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)

Poets are never young
in one sense.
Their delicate ear hears
the far-off whispers
of eternity,
which coarser souls
must travel towards
for scores of years
before their full sense
is touched by them.

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894)


The truest poetry
is the most feigning.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)


A poet's pleasure
is to withhold
a little of his meaning.
He unzips
the veil from beauty,
but does not remove it.
A poet utterly clear
is a trifle glaring.

Robert Frost (1874-1963)


Poetry is certainly something
more than good sense,
but it must be
good sense;
just as a palace is more
than a house,
but it must be
a house.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)


As war
and disease, politics
drugs and pornography
litter the landscape,
creating potential pitfalls
for most,
find yourself a poet
to be your guide--
for within the bosom
of poetry,
there is sweet santuary.

Glenn Buttkus (1944-)