Body Quote by David Whyte

“Does the poem reside in experience or in self-consciousness about experience?”

— Mark Doty

For poems are not, as people think, simply emotions (one has emotions early enough)-they are experiences.

— Rainer Maria Rilke

“Poems are not often simply emotions but One has enough emotions -- they're experience Experience themselves are not important....”

— Angela Suba Natarajan

Poetry brings all possible experience to the same degree: a degree in the consciousness beyond which the consciousness itself cannot go.

— Laura Riding

“A genuine poet is one who writes about experiences before they happen to him.”

— T.S Eliot

“Poetry is not about how we feel, of course. It’s about how we feel about how we feel. Knowing how we feel about how…

— Adrian Blevins

Poetic experience is distinct in nature from mystical experience. Because poetry emanates from the free creativity of the spirit,it is from the very start…

— Jacques Maritain

“Poetry...is full of visions pulled more from our hearts than from our minds. Our greatest poems are written in the dust of our deepest…

— John H Ritter

Poetry can magnify experience.

— May Swenson

The reading of a poem should be an experience. Its writing must be all the more so.

— Wallace Stevens

“Personal angst, agony, anger, anxiety and pleasure might produce good poetry. However, to create the best, as many poets have expressed in the past,…

— Alok Mishra

Much of a poet's experience takes place in imagination only; the life he tells is oftenest the life that he strongly desires to live,…

— George Edward Woodberry