Poetry Quotes - Page 34

Poetry is a hazardous occupation, very hazardous. There may be bad things in there inside you that maybe you can't handle.

The union of a want and a sentiment.

You may rely on it that you have the best of me in my books, and that I am not worth seeing personally, the stuttering, blunderingclod-hopper that I am. Even poetry, you know, is in one sense an infinite brag and exaggeration. Not that I do not stand on all that I have written,--but what am I to the truth I feebly utter?

A bard whom there were none to praise, And very few to read.

You can be a thorough-going Neo-Darwinian without imagination, metaphysics, poetry, conscience, or decency. For 'Natural Selection' has no moral significance: it deals with that part of evolution which has no purpose, no intelligence, and might more appropriately be called accidental selection, or better still, Unnatural Selection, since nothing is more unnatural than an accident. If it could be proved that the whole universe had been produced by such Selection, only fools and rascals could bear to live.

It is through the intentionality of poetic imagination that the poet's soul discovers the opening of consciousness common to all true poetry.

Everybody can write poetry, just like everybody knows how to make love.

The poet is a pretender. / He pretends so completely, / that he even pretends that it is pain / the pain he really feels.

Refine your senses through the great masters of music, painting, and poetry.

My poetry is not lyric. The epigrams are lyric because they come from my youthful period of lyricism, but my other poetry is not lyric.

Stylized acting and direction is to realistic acting and direction as poetry is to prose.

I have always loved American poetry, which is very different from Irish poetry.

A poet dares to be just so clear and no clearer; he approaches lucid ground warily, like a mariner who is determined not to scrape his bottom on anything solid. A poet's pleasure is to withhold a little of his meaning, to intensify by mystification. He unzips the veil from beauty, but does not remove it. A poet utterly clear is a trifle glaring.

Poetry is what makes my toenails twinkle.

Poetry saves what is human in this world going gaudy & insane. In exploring small truths, something larger might turn up, adding dimension, insight, vision, recognition to our lives. We just might be more complete, more aware after a poem.

Still looking for that blue jean, baby queen, prettiest girl that I ever seen. See her shake on the movie screen, Jimmy Dean.

The only true aristocracy is that of consciousness.

Poetry is a dividend from what you know and what you are.

And all poets love dust and mist because all the last answers. Go running back to dust and mist.

Poetry is a kinetic arrangement of static syllables.

In his youth, Wordsworth sympathized with the French Revolution, went to France, wrote good poetry and had a natural daughter. At this period, he was a bad man. Then he became good, abandoned his daughter, adopted correct principles and wrote bad poetry.

Poets are sitting in my kitchen. Why do these poets lie? Why do children get children and Did you hear what it said?

I was only sitting here in my white study with the awful black words pushing me around.

My business is words. Words are like labels, or coins, or better, like swarming bees.

Poems are my link with the times, with the new life of my people.