Introducing 101 Delightful Quotes About Poetry
These are our favourite 101 quotes about poetry from writers, poets and other notable figures from recent history. Use them to inspire your next great adventure, share them with a close friend, or spread the love across your social media!
"Poetry is an act of peace."
"Poetry is the journal of a sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air."
"Poetry is plucking at the heartstrings, and making music with them."
"Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash."
"Poetry can be dangerous, especially beautiful poetry, because it gives the illusion of having had the experience without actually going through it."
"Poetry is truth in its Sunday clothes."
"Poetry is frosted fire."
"Poetry is everywhere; it just needs editing."
"Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting."
"Poetry is a language in which man explores his own amazement."
"If you can’t be a poet, be the poem."
"There is something about poetry beyond prose logic, there is mystery in it, not to be explained but admired"
"Poets are soldiers that liberate words from the steadfast possession of' definition"
"The true poem rests between the words."
"Poetry is the robe, the royal apparel, in which truth asserts its divine origin."
"Don’t use the phone. People are never ready to answer it. Use poetry."
"There is not a particle of life which does not bear poetry within it."
"Writing poetry is a state of free float."
"Poetry lies its way to the truth."
"Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history."
“If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry.”
“When I began to listen to poetry, it’s when I began to listen to the stones, and I began to listen to what the clouds had to say"
“To me, art begets art. Painting feeds the eye just as poetry feeds the ear, which is to say that both feed the soul.”
“The world is full of poetry. The air is living with its spirit; and the waves dance to the music of its melodies, and sparkle in its brightness.”
“The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.”
"Only the very weak-minded refuse to be influenced by literature and poetry.”
“Poetry and beauty are always making peace. When you read something beautiful you find coexistence; it breaks walls down.”
“Poetry comes from the highest happiness or the deepest sorrow.”
"Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.”
“One should always be drunk. That’s all that matters…But with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you chose. But get drunk.”
“It was at that age, that poetry came in search of me.”
“If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.”
"A good poem helps to change the shape of the universe, helps to extend everyone’s knowledge of himself and the world around him.”
" Poets are shameless with their experiences: they exploit them."
"Always be a poet, even in prose."
“Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity.”
“Poetry is emotion put into measure. The emotion must come by nature, but the measure can be acquired by art.”
"All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling."
"Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down."
"Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal. "
"A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness."
“It is a test [that] genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.”
“Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.”
“Poetry is the journal of the sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air. Poetry is a search for syllables to shoot at the barriers of the unknown and the unknowable. Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away.”
“He who draws noble delights from sentiments of poetry is a true poet, though he has never written a line in all his life.”
"For us to be poets today, it means we are trusted with something very big. And we should count ourselves as the most blessed"
"A poet can survive everything but a misprint."
“The poet is the priest of the invisible.”
“I would define ... the Poetry of words as The Rhythmical Creation of Beauty.”
"Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary."
"Everything you invent is true: you can be sure of that. Poetry is a subject as precise as geometry."
"Poets are the sense, philosophers the intelligence of humanity."
"Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history."
"That's what poetry is—
A painting in the mind.
Without palette and brush
it mixes words into images."
"A poem is a painting that is not seen;
A painting is a poem that is not heard"
“Poetry is emotion, passion, love, grief—everything that is human. It is not for zombies by zombies.”
“Poetry is eternal graffiti written in the heart of everyone.”
“Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat.”
“Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.”
“Poetry, I feel, is a tyrannical discipline. You’ve got to go so far so fast in such a small space; you’ve got to burn away all the peripherals.”
“The genesis of a poem for me is usually a cluster of words. The only good metaphor I can think of is a scientific one: dipping a thread into a supersaturated solution to induce crystal formation. I don’t think I solve problems in my poetry; I think I uncover the problems.”
“Poetry is one of the ancient arts, and it begins as did all the fine arts, within the original wilderness of the earth.”
“Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.”
“Poetry is like a bird, it ignores all frontiers.”
"Poetry is the lifeblood of rebellion, revolution, and the raising of consciousness" — Alice Walker
" If poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree it had better not come at all."
"You will never be alone with a poet in your pocket."
"Poetry is what is lost in translation. It is also what is lost in interpretation."
"In the house of poetry nothing endures that is not written with blood to be heard with blood."
"Poetry is thoughts that breathe, and words that burn."
"Poetry is a religion with no hope."
"Prose is a museum where all the old weapons of poetry are kept. "
"Painting is silent poetry, poetry is eloquent painting."
"Poetry is life distilled."
"An age which is incapable of poetry is incapable of any kind of literature except the cleverness of a decadence."
"Poetry is not the books in the library. Poetry is the encounter of the reader with the book, the discovery of the book."
"Poetry is the only art people haven’t yet learnt to consume like soup."
"Poetry should be great and unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one’s soul."
"Poetry must be new as foam, and as old as the rock."
"Poetry is about as much a ‘criticism of life’ as red-hot iron is a criticism of fire."
"Poetry is the liquid voice that can wear through stone."
"Poetry is to prose as dancing is to walking."
"Poetry is a religion with no hope."
“The courage of the poet is to keep ajar the door that leads into madness.”
“Poetry is just evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.”
“There is not a particle of life which does not bear poetry within it.”
“The best poems say with words that which can’t be said with words.”
“A poem begins with delight and ends in wisdom.”
“In the end, the poem is not a thing we see; it is, rather, a light by which we may see—and what we see is life.”
“Dear Reader, beware. You think you’re reading my poems, but in truth, they are reading you. My words are mirrors and windows. Your reaction is merely a reflection of your own nature and experiences.”
“I think that we’re beginning to remember that the first poets didn’t come out of a classroom, that poetry began when somebody walked off of a savanna or out of a cave and looked up at the sky with wonder and said, “Ahhh.” That was the first poem.”
What does poetry mean to you? We would love to hear your thoughts, and your favourite quotes about poetry! We are @pickmeuppoetry across all social media. Better yet, subscribe to our magazine below and you’ll be the first to know what we are up to!