A speech is poetry: cadence, rhythm, imagery, sweep! A speech reminds us that words, like children, have the power to make dance the dullest beanbag of a heart.
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I'll publish, right or wrong: Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.
lord byronMy soul is awakened, my spirit is soaring; And carried aloft on the wings of the breeze; For above and around me the wild wind is roaring, Arousing to rapture the earth and the seas.
anne brontëThere's something in a flying horse, There's something in a huge balloon.
william wordsworthWe dance round in a ring and suppose, But the Secret sits in the middle and knows
robert frost[I] do not like poems that resemble hay compressed into a geometrically perfect cube. I like it when the hay, unkempt, uncombed, with dry berries mixed in it, thrown together gaily and freely, bounces along atop some truck—and more, if there are some lovely and healthy lasses atop the hay—and better yet if the branches catch at the hay, and some of it tumbles to the road.
yevgeny yevtushenkoI by no means rank poetry high in the scale of intelligence this may look like affectation but it is my real opinion it is the lava of the imagination, whose eruption prevents an earthquake
lord byronPoetry is man's rebellion against being what he is.
james branch cabellHe who draws noble delights from sentiments of poetry is a true poet, though he has never written a line in all his life.
George SandStill may syllables jar with time, Still may reason war with rhyme, * Resting never!
Ben JonsonAnd glory, like the phoenix midst her fires, Exhales her odours, blazes, and expires.
lord byronTake something commoplace, clean it and polish it, light it so that it produces the same effect of youth and freshness and originality and spontaneity as it did originally, and you have done a poet’s job. The rest is literature.
jean cocteauThe crown of literature is poetry.
Matthew ArnoldThe writing of a poem is like a child throwing stones into a mineshaft. You compose first, then you listen for the reverberation.
james fentonPoetry is a game of loser-take-all.
jean-luc godardPoetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth, by calling imagination to the help of reason.
samuel johnsonMost people ignore most poetry because most poetry ignore most people.
Adrian MitchellA good poem helps to change the shape and significance of the universe, helps to extend everyone's knowledge of himself and the world around him.
dylan thomasMade poetry a mere mechanic art.
william cowperTo write a verse or two, is all the praise That I can raise.
George HerbertThese pearls of thought in Persian gulfs were bred, Each softly lucent as a rounded moon; The diver Omar plucked them from their bed, FitzGerald strung them on an English thread.
james russell lowellOld-fashioned poetry, but choicely good.
Izaak Walton