Stanza Quotes

“Poetry isn’t an island, it is the bridge. Poetry isn’t a ship, it is the lifeboat. Poetry isn’t swimming. Poetry is water.”

— Kamand Kojouri

Poetry makes its own pertinence, and a single stanza outweighs a book of prose.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

I don't see that a single line can constitute a stanza, although it can constitute a whole poem.

— James Fenton

I'd say that the middle stanza is closer: that's the place where the poem ranges unexpectedly into a different realm.

— Jane Hirshfield

I never 'plan' a stanza. Words cluster like chromosomes, determining the procedure.

— Marianne Moore

“Wherever you go in the next catastrophé Be it sickroom, or prison, or cemet’ry Do not fear that your stay will be…

— Roman Payne

Each poem seems to demand its own formal approach. In both drafting and revision, I'll play around with line lengths and stanza…

— Allison Joseph

The Italian word 'stanza' means 'a room', and a room is a good way to conceive of a stanza. A room, generally…

— James Fenton

“I’m engaged in the dance of the ages and the search for a song to go with it. Though Templeton’s A Veritable…

— Chila Woychik

Is there a parson much bemused in beer, a maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer, a clerk foredoom'd his father's soul to cross,…

— Alexander Pope

So much of our lives depends on accidents of birth, time, and geography. This haunts me. In some lives, few "or"s are…

— Jane Hirshfield

At four lines, with the quatrain, we reach the basic stanza form familiar from a whole range of English poetic practice. This…

— James Fenton

I have said this to explain the stanza that follows, in which the soul replies to those who call in question its…

— John of the Cross

For no one, in our long decline,So dusty, spiteful and divided,Had quite such pleasant friends as mine,Or loved them half as much…

— Hilaire Belloc