Top 472 Poetry Quotes

Writing poetry is the hard manual labor of the imagination.

Writing poetry is the hard manual labor of the imagination.

Ishmael Reed

Women do not have as great a need for poetry because their own essence is poetry.

Women do not have as great a need for poetry because their own essence is poetry.

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

From my music training, I knew that, some Spanish rhythms apart, 5/4 is a time signature used only in the modern era. Holst's Mars from the Planets is 5/4. But if you speak lines of poetry in that pattern you just end up hitting the off-beats. It's only when you add a rest - a sixth beat - that it sounds as it surely should sound.

Nicholson Baker

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

I studied poetry in college and for a year in an MFA program. As time went on, my poems got more and more complicated. What I was really trying to do was tell stories.

I studied poetry in college and for a year in an MFA program. As time went on, my poems got more and more complicated. What I was really trying to do was tell stories.

Jennifer McMahon

I loathe the trivialization of poetry that happens in creative writing classes. Teachers set exercises to stimulate subject matter: Write a poem about an imaginary landscape with real people in it. Write about a place your parents lived in before you were born. We have enough terrible poetry around without encouraging more of it.

Donald Hall

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

I credit poetry for making this space-walk possible.

I credit poetry for making this space-walk possible.

Seamus Heaney

Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.

Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.

Carl Sandburg

I find a lot of poetry very disappointing, but I do have poets that I go back to. One book of poetry that I'd like to mention is 'The Exchange' by Sophie Cabot Black. Her poems are difficult without being too difficult.

Billy Collins

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