Best 8159 quotes in «poetry quotes» category

we have let rhetoric do the job of poetry.

We Negro writers, just by being black, have been on the blacklist all our lives. Censorship for us begins at the color line.

We read poetry because the poets, like ourselves, have been haunted by the inescapable tyranny of time and death; have suffered the pain of loss, and the more wearing, continuous pain of frustration and failure; and have had moods of unlooked-for release and peace. They have known and watched in themselves and others.

Went looking for faith on the forest floor, and it showed up everywhere. In the sun, and the water, and the falling leaves, the falling leaves of time.

What was the function of poetry if not to improve the petty, cautious minds of evasive children?

We were together. I forget the rest.

What matters Death, if Freedom be not dead? No flags are fair, if Freedom's flag be furled. Who fights for Freedom, goes with joyful tread To meet the fires of Hell against him hurled.

What characterizes a poem is its necessary dependence on words as much as its struggle to transcend them.

Whatever is not stone is light

What is poetry? The suggestion, by the imagination, of noble grounds for the noble emotions.

What raises great poetry above all else--it is the entire person and also the entire world.

When in public poetry should take off its clothes and wave to the nearest person in sight; it should be seen in the company of thieves and lovers rather than that of journalists and publishers.

when a poem says something that could not have been said in any other way, in music, prose, sculpture, movement or paint, then it is poetry.

Whenever I get lost in a novel I just throw a poem in. What it does is flare up, and it's so illuminated that I'm able to see where to go. I write between these illuminations.

When something is too beautiful or too terrible or even too funny for words, then it is time for poetry.

When oxygen and sulphur dioxide are mixed in the presence of a filiament of platinum, they form sulphurous acid. This combination takes place only if the platinum is present; nevertheless the newly formed acid contains no trace of platinum, and the platinum itself is apparently unaffected: has remained inert, neutral, and unchanged. The mind of the poet is the shred of platinum.

Why must ancients, and provided the same talent, be better than modern authors? Free to exploit the vast realm of the simpleand the natural, they did not have to be artificial in order to be original (which every artist aspires to be).

When the tea is brought at five o'clock And all the neat curtains are drawn with care, The little black cat with bright green eyes Is suddenly purring there.

Wherever the poetry of myth is interpreted as biography, history, or science, it is killed.

When the rhythm and night ride, no heart can hide.

Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.

Women are not supposed to have uteruses, especially in poems.

Write, form a rhizome, increase your territory by deterritorialization, extend the line of flight to the point where it becomes an abstract machine covering the entire plane of consistency.

Writing was a political act and poetry was a cultural weapon.

Writing poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric.

Writing poetry is the hard manual labor of the imagination.

Yea, marry, now it is somewhat, for now it is rhyme; before, it was neither rhyme nor reason.

Wordsworth went to the Lakes, but he was never a lake poet. He found in stones the sermons he had already hidden there.

Write a thousand words a day and in three years you'll be a writer!

Writing poetry is a state of free float.

2a.m and a ceiling stained with question marks.

You don't help people in your poems. I've been trying to help people all my life - that's my trouble

You never wish on shooting stars. You wish on the ones that have the courage to shine where they are.

You speak As one who fed on poetry.

21. Muurahaisten sokerijalat, täyttymystahmeat. Niiden keinuvat mustat siivet, valosta varjoon soljuvat varret. Auringon myöhäiset sormet höyhenillä, niin tuuliset ja viipyilevät. Niin kuin se, mikä on kahden välillä löytää paikkansa, lepäämättä. Tai niin kuin leikki alkaa surusta, leikillä on kehä, sen keskellä aina joku, unohtunut valo hiuksillaan, muistuttaa merestä johon aurinko uppoaa niin tuulisesti, niin tuulisesti ja viipyilevästi kuin iholla rakastetun sormet. Tapaaminen joka on aina viimeinen, leikin keskellä, ulkopuolella leikin, ei surun.

22 Ιουνίου 1962 - Ελάτε πίσω, τον τροχό - Benoy Majumder Ας πάμε, αν το κάνεις, το νερόμυλο, τη σπασμένη καρδιά, την καρδιά. Μείνετε μακριά από όλη την ειρήνη, την ικανοποίηση, όλα ξεχασμένα. Απλά κρατήστε την καρδιά της γεμάτη από την καρδιά της. Τα μακρύτατα μάτια του ήταν στη θάλασσα, στη θάλασσα Βαθιά κλήση, σκιά, σύννεφα, windstorm, ουρανό, άνεμος Άλογα σαν τραυματικό yosemite Τις διαρκείς σκέψεις του. Πρώτη φορά σχισμένο Το μυστικό του δέρματος είναι σαν ένα μυστικό, γλυκό e-πόνο. Ας πάμε όλη τη φωτιά, το νερόμυλο, τη σπασμένη καρδιά, την καρδιά.

5.57am and I’m finishing the last poem to the taste of the last cigarette. Smoke in my lungs, poetry on the paper. Inhale, exhale, it doesn’t get much easier.

7. But what kind of love is it, really? Don’t fool yourself and call it sublimity. Admit that you have stood in front of a little pile of powdered ultramarine pigment in a glass cup at a museum and felt a stinging desire. But to do what? Liberate it? Purchase it? Ingest it? . . . You might want to reach out and disturb the pile of pigment, for example, first staining your fingers with it, then staining the world. You might want to dilute it and swim in it, you might want to rouge your nipples with it, you might want to paint a virgin’s robe with it. But still you wouldn’t be accessing the blue of it. Not exactly.

A beautiful poem is nothing but a mirror of philosophy through which we can see life’s pure beauty.

A blooming flower pleads, oh thee! Look at me, to see the beauty, Kiss me like a bee, To feel the bliss, To taste the nectar of life And just to feel and be. Kiss me like a wave kisses the shore In an endless dancing sea, again and again, just to be.

A book about books is like a poem about poetry: Books are knowledge, paid for, all. Readers - horses in a stall. Stallions should always run. Lest they stale become, in turn. Running waters are most clear. In some books, you disappear – lose yourself, and track of time. How I wish that one was mine... Mine, to have, to write, to read... Mine, just like a flying steed. Mine, forever, - to improve. Would I then, of me, approve? I would not, I can't... myself. I'm but dust, swept off a shelf. Fly, can I, just 'til I'm settled, down, beside my flower, petalled.

A black boy brought Wilson's gin and he sipped it very slowly because he had nothing else to do except to return to his hot and squalid room and read a novel - or a poem. Wilson liked poetry, but he absorbed it secretly, like a drug. The Golden Treasury accompanied him wherever he went, but it was taken at night in small doses - a finger of Longfellow, Macaulay, Mangan: 'Go on to tell how, with genius wasted, Betrayed in friendship, befooled in love...' His taste was romantic. For public exhibition he has his Wallace. He wanted passionately to be indistinguishable on the surface from other men: he wore his moustache like a club tie - it was his highest common factor, but his eyes betrayed him - brown dog's eyes, a setter's eyes, pointing mournfully towards Bond Street.

A Brief Awakening In the vastness of the out-rushing cosmos, you are but tiny—a warm and pulsing spark. Against all odds, your birth a brief awakening from silent eons spent sleeping in the dark. When you feel your heart swell with wild wonder at the dazzling diamond chandeliers of night, know your body was built from ancient stardust and the universe now sees through your eyes. So let the breath of sweet gratitude fill you, as the light of each new day begins. For this moment itself is a miracle, and to live it is your privilege my friend.

Abortive time: unwilling to tarry Daylight begins to hide into the heat His moonless night desires to be starry Those lame knees want to break down on his feet From the poem Sonnet For A Man (Part I)

Absolute is a game with only one player where Absolute forgets itself so it would have a reason to fulfill the motion while returning.

Absence of problems    does not lead to happiness.      Dealing with them does.

¿Acaso no oyes al viento cuando pasa silbando mensajes? Tu alma existe, pero no gravita.

A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child?. . . .I do not know what it is any more than he. I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven. Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord, A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped, Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose? Or I guess the grass is itself a child. . . .the produced babe of the vegetation. Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic, And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones, Growing among black folks as among white, Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the same. And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves. Tenderly will I use you curling grass, It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men, It may be if I had known them I would have loved them; It may be you are from old people and from women, and from offspring taken soon out of their mother’s laps, And here you are the mother’s laps. This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers, Darker than the colorless beards of old men, Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths. O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues! And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing. I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women, And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken soon out of their laps. What do you think has become of the young and old men? What do you think has become of the women and children? They are alive and well somewhere; The smallest sprouts show there is really no death, And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it, And ceased the moment life appeared. All goes onward and outward. . . .and nothing collapses, And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

~A Comparison of Seasons~ Snow's unforgiving power causes some men to wish for spring's flower. Some might hate snow's bitter chill, but you love it at your own will. I see snow as something fun, but others might still long for summer's sun. You and I hate summer's heat, but we still love the warmth of a fire on our feet. Spring has jays whose virtuous songs are nice, but winter's lonely echoes are earth's frigged vice. I enjoy spring's life, yet I still love winter's seemingly harsh sorrow; sometimes I can't get out of the house, so I worry about tomorrow. I love the sight of snow and I treasure the sight of summer's river which swiftly flows. Also, winter can be cold, but we can look forward to seeing spring's life and joy unfold.

Act correctly. Incorrect action cannot be justified by incorrect action. An incorrect action taken to cover an incorrect action is doubly incorrect.