Among the American contemporaries I read with most…

Photography's potential as a great image-maker and communicator is really no different from the same potential in the best poetry where familiar, everyday words,…

— Paul Caponigro

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep but I have promises to keep…

— Robert Frost

The irony is, going to work every day became the subject of probably my best poetry.

— Philip Levine

“Love songs or poetry? Ambrose: Love songs–you get the best of both, poetry set to music. And you can't dance to poetry.”

— Amy Harmon

I know why the caged bird sings.

— Maya Angelou

I like to think that the best poetry is or involves a contest between ordinary conversation and ritual.

— Miller Williams

What poetry is asking us to accept can be difficult. Our proximity to our mortality, the fragility of our existence, how close we live…

— Matthew Zapruder

I believe the best poetry of our times is growing too artistic; the study is too visible. If freedom and naturalness are lost out…

— Lucy Larcom

The best poetry has its roots in the subconscious to a great degree. Youth, naivety, reliance on instinct more than learning and method, a…

— May Swenson

That which moveth the heart most is the best poetry; it comes nearest unto God, the source of all power.

— Walter Savage Landor

The best poetry will be found to have a power of forming, sustaining, and delighting us, as nothing else can.

— Matthew Arnold

“Poet has no power over the muse, It's the muse who powers the poet. Best of poetry is an act of selfless care, As…

— Abhijit Naskar

Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul.

— Emily Dickinson

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when…

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Versatility of education can be found in our best poetry, but the depth of mankind should be found in the philosopher.

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel