Assault Quote by Sam Hamill

Poetry can't give us the laws and institutions and representatives, the antidotes we need: only public activism by massive numbers of citizens can do…

— Adrienne Rich

There are poets who believe that you shouldn't engage at all in any cause. And there's something to be said for that. Because you…

— W. S. Merwin

But poets were not considered dangerous and they were advised to exercise self-censorship. At most, poets were requested not to write at all. I…

— Eugenio Montale

I'm of the opinion that poetry is always political, and cannot help but be so, regardless of the poet's intent, given that refusing to…

— Andre Naffis-Sahely

Civic poetry offers us a way to think and talk about issues that so much of public speech ignores, to make them new by…

— Alissa Quart

But there is some way in which poets believe that and this is dangerous, too believe that their calling gives them a certain freedom.…

— Peter Davison

Written poetry is worth reading once, and then should be destroyed. Let the dead poets make way for others.

— Antonin Artaud

“Even the simplest poem May destroy your immunity to human emotions. All poems must carry a Government warning. Words Can seriously affect your heart.”

— Elma Mitchell

A revolutionary poem will not tell you who or when to kill, what and when to burn, or even how to theorize. It reminds…

— Adrienne Rich

The only thing we all agree on, virtually every poet in this country, is that this Administration is really frightening, and we want something…

— Sam Hamill

I think that the job of poetry, its political job, is to refresh the idea of justice, which is going dead in us all…

— Robert Hass

What I propose for the "life of a poet" goes against the grain of the fossil fuel monoculture. Maybe the most revolutionary act these…

— Anne Waldman