Can't change Quote by Bei Dao

I don't think of writing my poems for China or for the world. I mainly think of a small audience of friends and people…

— Bei Dao

If the United States haven't grown poets, on any scale of grandeur, it is certain that they import, print, and read more poetry than…

— Walt Whitman

I certainly can't speak for all cultures or all societies, but it's clear that in America, poetry serves a very marginal purpose. It's not…

— Mark Strand

Poetry resonates differently in each culture; it doesn't in America.

— Campbell McGrath

For an American, there's no automatic place where people love the art of poetry. There's not a social class that considers poetry its property…

— Robert Pinsky

In most of the world, poetry has such a different reputation than it does in Western culture.

— Eliza Griswold

Poetry is like air. It's one of the necessary things. Everyone benefits from poetry. And as you know, poetry is international. There are only…

— Nikki Giovanni

By definition, poetry works with qualities and dynamics that mainstream society is reluctant to face head-on. It's an interesting phenomenon that by necessity, poetry…

— David Whyte

Poetry is often very critical of the culture from which it emerges. Quite often literary critics of a nationalist bent talk up the national…

— Edna Longley

Do you know, Considering the market, there are more Poems produced than any other thing? No wonder poets sometimes have to seem So much…

— Robert Frost

To be a poet is a condition rather than a profession.

— Robert Graves

Poetry is something that happens in universities, in creative writing programs or in English departments.

— Mark Strand