Top 472 Poetry Quotes

The great watershed of modern poetry is French, more than English.

The great watershed of modern poetry is French, more than English.

Robert Morgan

I'm moving to Rio permanently with my family. It's one of the places left in the world where people still live with a big charge of poetry on a daily basis. I feel we've kind of lost that here in Europe.

Vincent Cassel

That metre itself forms an essential part of all true poetry is a principle which not even the assertions of an Aristotle or the pronouncements of a Plato can disestablish.

That metre itself forms an essential part of all true poetry is a principle which not even the assertions of an Aristotle or the pronouncements of a Plato can disestablish.

H. P. Lovecraft

All those authors there, most of whom of course I've never met. That's the poetry side, that's the prose side, that's the fishing and miscellaneous behind me. You get an affection for books that you've enjoyed.

Norman MacCaig

Poetry is innocent, not wise. It does not learn from experience, because each poetic experience is unique.

Poetry is innocent, not wise. It does not learn from experience, because each poetic experience is unique.

Karl Shapiro

A public expectation, it has to be said, not of poetry as such but of political positions variously approvable by mutually disapproving groups.

A public expectation, it has to be said, not of poetry as such but of political positions variously approvable by mutually disapproving groups.

Seamus Heaney

The fact of the matter is that the most unexpected and miraculous thing in my life was the arrival in it of poetry itself - as a vocation and an elevation almost.

The fact of the matter is that the most unexpected and miraculous thing in my life was the arrival in it of poetry itself - as a vocation and an elevation almost.

Seamus Heaney

If I'm feeling desperate, I'll go out image-hunting. I'll go to news agents and stand at the rack flicking through magazines or go to second-hand bookshops. And then, bit by bit, like concrete poetry, I start to realise that I am drawn to particular things, and then I start wondering why that is.

Gary Hume

I have piles of poetry books in the bathroom, on the stairs, everywhere. The only way to write poetry is to read it.

I have piles of poetry books in the bathroom, on the stairs, everywhere. The only way to write poetry is to read it.

Carol Ann Duffy

I've never written poetry. I'm not a poet, but I think the nearest you get is either the short story or the novella, in that you can't waste a word. There is no hiding place: everything's got to be seen to relate, and the prose counts.

Susan Hill

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