Quotes about poetry
150 quotes from 90 people
Prose — it might be speculated — is discourse; poetry ellipsis.
Joyce Carol Oatesborn 1938“‘Soul at the White Heat’: The Romance of Emily Dickinson’s Poetry,” (Woman) Writer: Occasions and Opportunities (1988)
Ovid43 BC–AD 17Tristia, Book I, poem 1, line 39Even the best critical writing on Emily Dickinson underestimates her. She is frightening.
Camille Pagliaborn 1947Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 624
Edgar Allan Poe1809–1849The Philosophy of Composition (1846), p.122 Line 17The apparition of these faces in the crowd:
Petals on a wet, black bough.
Arthur Rimbaud1854–1891Letter to Paul Demeny (May 15, 1871)
Joseph Roux1834–1905Meditations of a Parish Priest (1866), Part 1, LXXI
J. D. Salinger1919–2010Teddy (1953)The true poet has no choice of material. The material plainly chooses him, not he it.
J. D. Salinger1919–2010Seymour: An Introduction (1959)
Carl Sandburg1878–1967“Tentative (First Model) Definitions of Poetry”, in Complete Poems (1950)
Jean-Paul Sartre1905–1980“Orphée Noir (Black Orpheus)”So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
