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Quotes about poetry

150 quotes from 90 people

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Every poem can be considered in two ways⁠—as what the poet has to say, and as a thing which he makes.
C. S. Lewis1898–1963A Preface to Paradise Lost
Every great poem is in itself limited by necessity, — but in its suggestions unlimited and infinite.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow1807–1882Table-Talk (1857)
Music is the universal language of mankind — poetry their universal pastime and delight.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow1807–1882Outre-Mer (1835).
- Music
Should you ask me, whence these stories?
Whence these legends and traditions,
With the odors of the forest,
With the dew and damp of meadows,
With the curling smoke of wigwams,
With the rushing of great rivers,
With their frequent repetitions,
And their wild reverberations,
As of thunder in the mountains?
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow1807–1882The Song of Hiawatha (1855), IntroductionIn context
- Nature
Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought. The farthest external horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives.
Audre Lorde1934–1992Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (1984), “Poetry is Not a Luxury”, p. 37
Our family are an alternate stratification of poetry and mathematics.
Ada Lovelace1815–1852In a letter to Andrew Crosse, as quoted in Eugen Kölbing’s Englische Studien, Volume 19 (1894), Leipzig
- Family
The one man who should never attempt an explanation on poetry is its author. If the poem can be improved by its author’s explanations, it never should have been published.
Archibald MacLeish1892–1982
A poem should not mean
But be.
Archibald MacLeish1892–1982“Ars Poetica”, Collected Poems, 1917-1982 (1985)
A grain of poetry suffices to season a century.
José Martí1853–1895Dedication of the Statue of Liberty (1887)
A poet more than thirty years old is simply an overgrown child.
H. L. Mencken1880–1956Minority Report: H.L. Mencken’s Notebooks (1956), 13
He who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things ought himself to be a true poem.
John Milton1608–1674Apology for Smectymnuus (1642)
- Writing
Poetry is the art of creating imaginary gardens with real toads.
Marianne Moore1887–1972
The courage of the poet is to keep ajar the door that leads into madness.
Christopher Morley1890–1957
Dreamer of dreams, born out of my due time,
Why should I strive to set the crooked straight?
William Morris1834–1896The Earthly Paradise (1868), “An Apology”, ll. 22–23
A subject for a great poet would be God’s boredom after the seventh day of Creation.
Friedrich Nietzsche1844–1900
- God