35 Scintillating Poetry Quotes
by Jaylynn Korrell
Poetry quotes: little golden nuggets of wisdom to send you sprinting to the bookstore
Poetry is unlike any other form of language. It’s not speech. Not prose. It’s not even always natural. Sometimes it rhymes even though we don’t rhyme. But one thing it does do? It lasts.
Oh, poetry, how I love you!
How you break down doors, traverse barriers, say things that haven’t been said in ways that haven’t been done before. There’s nothing like you. And yet you encompass everything.
Reading quotes about poetry can change the game for so many readers. Why else do you think I’m putting this list together? I want you to read more poetry. There’s something special in there for you, I know it. And once you start, there’s no turning back. You’ll be a poetry lover in no time.
Here are some of our favorite poetry quotes!
1. “To find beauty in ugliness is the province of the poet.” ― Thomas Hardy
2. “Poetry is the one place where people can speak their original human mind. It is the outlet for people to say in public what is known in private.” — Allen Ginsberg
3. “Always be a poet, even in prose.” — Charles Baudelaire
4. “The genesis of a poem for me is usually a cluster of words. The only good metaphor I can think of is a scientific one: dipping a thread into a supersaturated solution to induce crystal formation. I don’t think I solve problems in my poetry; I think I uncover the problems.” — Margaret Atwood
5.“Poetry comes from the highest happiness or the deepest sorrow.” — A.P.J. Abdul Kalam
6. “Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat.” — Robert Frost
7.“Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.” — Virginia Woolf
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8. “Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.” — Plato
9. “There is no money in poetry, but then there is no poetry in money, either.” — Robert Graves
10. “You can find poetry in your everyday life, your memory, in what people say on the bus, in the news, or just what’s in your heart.” — Carol Ann Duffy
11. “A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.” — W. H. Auden
12. “Writing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.” — Don Marquis
13. “If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry.” — Emily Dickinson
14. “The fate of poetry is to fall in love with the world in spite of History.” — Derek Walcott
15. “A poem is never finished, only abandoned.” — Paul Valéry
16. “The crown of literature is poetry.” — W. Somerset Maugham
17. “In poetry and in eloquence the beautiful and grand must spring from the commonplace…. All that remains for us is to be new while repeating the old, and to be ourselves in becoming the echo of the whole world.” — Alexandre Vinet
18. “When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.” — John F. Kennedy
19. “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.” – T.S. Eliot
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20. “There is often as much poetry between the lines of a poem as in those lines.” — Alexandre Vinet
21. “Poetry is one of the ancient arts, and it begins as did all the fine arts, within the original wilderness of the earth.” — Mary Oliver
22. “It is the job of poetry to clean up our word-clogged reality by creating silences around things.” — Stephane Mallarme
23. “If you know what you are going to write when you’re writing a poem, it’s going to be average.” – Derek Walcott
24. “A good poem is a contribution to reality. The world is never the same once a good poem has been added to it. A good poem helps to change the shape of the universe, helps to extend everyone’s knowledge of himself and the world around him.” — Dylan Thomas
25. “I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled poets to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean.” — Socrates
26. “Reality only reveals itself when it is illuminated by a ray of poetry.” — Georges Brague
27. “Poetry, I feel, is a tyrannical discipline. You’ve got to go so far so fast in such a small space; you’ve got to burn away all the peripherals.” — Sylvia Plath
28. “Poets are masters of us ordinary men, in knowledge of the mind, because they drink at streams which we have not yet made accessible to science.” — Sigmund Freud
29. “The world is full of poetry. The air is living with its spirit; and the waves dance to the music of its melodies, and sparkle in its brightness.” — James Gates Percival
30. “I was reading the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about everything.” —Steven Wright
31. “Only the very weak-minded refuse to be influenced by literature and poetry.” — Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Angel
32. “Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.” — T.S. Eliot
33. “Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It’s that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that’s what the poet does.” — Allen Ginsburg
34. “A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.” — Robert Frost
35. “Poetry is not always words.” – Terri Guillemets
Which poetry quotes speak to you most? Let me know in the comments! 🙌
About the Author
Jaylynn Korrell is a nomadic writer currently based out of Pennsylvania. In addition to her writing and reading for Independent Book Review, she curates lists at GoodGiftLists.com.
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