Poem Quotes

1013 quotes by 651 authors

If you read quickly to get through a poem to what it means, you have missed the body of the poem. — M H Abrams
I don't think of poetry as a 'rational' activity but as an aural one. My poems usually begin with words or phrases which appeal more… — Margaret Atwood
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:… — Margaret Atwood
For me, a paragraph in a novel is a bit like a line in a poem. It has its own shape, its own music, its… — Paul Auster
A poem records emotions and moods that lie beyond normal language, that can only be patched together and hinted at metaphorically. — Diane Ackerman
I did that Grammys thing - I did a little freeform poem. — Beck
Words are so often used in the opposite sense, as a screen of diversion. It's the struggle towards truthfulness which is the same whether one… — John Berger
Is there any purpose to translating poetry? A poem does not contain information of importance, like a signpost or a warning notice. — James Buchan
But short films are not inferior, just different. I think the short gives a freedom to film-makers. What's appealing is that you don't have as… — Jane Campion
If you cannot be a poet, be the poem. — David Carradine
A poem generated by its own laws may be unrealized and bad in terms of so-called objective principles of taste, judgement, deduction. — A. R. Ammons
Each poem in becoming generates the laws by which it is generated: extensions of the laws to other poems never completely take. — A. R. Ammons
I can't tell you where a poem comes from, what it is, or what it is for: nor can any other man. The reason I… — A. R. Ammons
Like a pianist runs her fingers over the keys, I'll search my mind for what to say. Now, the poem may want you to write… — Maya Angelou
The great poem and the deep theorem are new to every reader, and yet are his own experiences, because he himself recreates them. — Jacob Bronowski
Good poetry and successful revolution change our lives. And you cannot compose a good poem or wage a revolution without changing consciousness unless you attack… — June Jordan
Yet America is a poem in our eyes; its ample geography dazzles the imagination, and it will not wait long for metres. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
The entire routine of our memorized acquisitions is a consequence of nothing but the Law of Contiguity. The words of a poem, the formulas of… — William James
Sometimes I come across a tree which seems like Buddha or Jesus: loving, compassionate, still, unambitious, enlightened, in eternal meditation, giving pleasure to a pilgrim,… — Satish Kumar
Could Hamlet have been written by a committee, or the "Mona Lisa" painted by a club? Could the New Testament have been composed as a… — Alfred Whitney Griswold

Who Wrote These Poem Quotes

651 authors contributed a total of 1,013 Poem Quotes, led by these top contributors: