Blur Quote by Diane Ackerman

Poetry is something that disturbs the mainstream with minor things and it is something that breaks down active discrimination with passive things, and it…

— Kim Hyesoon

Poetry is an intimate act. It's about bringing forth something that's inside you--whether it is a memory, a philosophical idea, a deep love for…

— Dorianne Laux

Poetry is a release of something previously unknown into the visible. You write to invite that, to make of yourself a gathering of the…

— Jane Hirshfield

Poetry is an awareness of the world, a particular way of relating to reality.

— Andrei Tarkovsky

Poetry is a kind of distilled insinuation. It's a way of expanding and talking around an idea or a question. Sometimes, more actually gets…

— Yusef Komunyakaa

Poetry is not only a set of words which are chosen to relate to each other; it is something which goes much further than…

— Tahar Ben Jelloun

Poetry is a way of always paying attention to the world for me; a way of letting the world stick to me instead of…

— Mike Young

Poetry is simply literature reduced to the essence of its active principle. It is purged of idols of every kind, of realistic illusions, of…

— Paul Valery

poetry has been able to function quite directly as human interpretation of the raw, loose universe. It is a mixture, if you will, of…

— Annie Dillard

Poetry is the language of extremity. Poetry is a transfer of potency. You feel something potent and then you transfer it onto the page.

— Li-Young Lee

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

As a direct line to human feeling, empathic experience, genuine language and detail, poetry is everything that headline news is not. It takes us…

— Naomi Shihab Nye