Poetry

C. S. Lewis Writer, Scholar

Poetry

"A work of (whatever) art can be either 'received' or 'used'. ...'Using' is inferior to 'reception' because art, if used rather than received, merely facilitates, brightens, relieves or palliates our life, and does not add to it ... When the art in question is literature a complication arises, for to 'receive' significant words is always, in one sense, to 'use' them, to go through and beyond them to an imagined something which is not itself verbal."

Art Doe Poetry

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Patti Smith Musician

Poetry

"I remember when you were born, it was dawn and the storm settled near my belly. And I rolled in the grass and spit out the gas, and I lit a match and the void went flash. And the sky split and the planets hit, balls of jade dropped and existence stopped."

Sky Poetry Storm

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Percy Bysshe Shelley Poet

Poetry

"I consider poetry very subordinate to moral and political science."

Political Moral Poetry

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Percy Bysshe Shelley Poet

Poetry

"A poet, as he is the author to others of the highest wisdom, pleasure, virtue, and glory, so he ought personally to be the happiest, the best, the wisest, and the most illustrious of men."

Men Virtue Poetry

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Percy Bysshe Shelley Poet

Poetry

"A story of particular facts is a mirror which obscures and distorts that which should be beautiful; poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that which it distorts."

Beautiful Mirrors Poetry

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Barbara Kingsolver Author, Biologist

Poetry

"I rarely think of poetry as something I make happen; it is more accurate to say that it happens to me. Like a summer storm, a house afire, or the coincidence of both on the same day."

Thinking Summer Poetry

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Elbert Hubbard Writer, Publisher

Poetry

"A person born with an instinct for poverty."

Poverty Poetry Instinct

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Elizabeth Barrett Browning Poet, Novelist

Poetry

"We can't separate our humanity from our poetry."

Humanity Poetry

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Adrienne Rich Poet, Essayist, Feminist

Poetry

"I do not think [poetry] is more, or less, necessary than food, shelter, health, education, decent working conditions. It is as necessary."

Thinking Poetry Health Education

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Adrienne Rich Poet, Essayist, Feminist

Poetry

"Can you remember? when we thought the poets taught how to live?"

Life Poetry Taught

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Adrienne Rich Poet, Essayist, Feminist

Poetry

"Reality, the oppressor's tongue."

Reality Literature Poetry

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Adrienne Rich Poet, Essayist, Feminist

Poetry

"The necessity of poetry has to be stated over and over, but only to those who have reason to fear its power, or those who still believe that language is 'only words' and that an old language is good enough for our descriptions of the world we are trying to transform."

Believe Trying Poetry

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Adrienne Rich Poet, Essayist, Feminist

Poetry

"... passion for survival is the great theme of women's poetry."

Passion Survival Poetry

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Charles Dickens Novelist

Poetry

"Why then we should drop into poetry."

Should Poetry

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Clive James Writer

Poetry

"Pound had argued - and Eliot had helped him prove - that a poem could be sustained by memorable moments. Olson proved that it could be sustained by unmemorable ones, provided that the texture of the accumulated jottings avoided the sound of failed poetry."

Sound Memorable Poetry

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Clive James Writer

Poetry

"One way or another, all the poets of the thirties and forties reacted to Auden, either by rejecting him or trying to absorb him."

Trying Literature Poetry

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Bob Dylan Singer-songwriter

Poetry

"Madonna, she still has not showed, we see this empty cage now corrode, where her cape of the stage once had flowed, the fiddler he now steps to the road, on the back of the fish truck that loads, while my conscience explodes."

Poetry Cages Capes

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Alexander Smith Poet

Poetry

"A poem round and perfect as a star."

Stars Perfect Poetry

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Amy Lowell Poet

Poetry

"I never deny poems when they come; whatever I am doing, whatever I am writing, I lay it aside and attend to the arriving poem."

Writing Poetry Arriving

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Amy Lowell Poet

Poetry

"Poetry is the most concentrated form of literature; it is the most emotionalized and powerful way in which thought can be presented."

Powerful Literature Poetry

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