Always Quote by Steven Heighton

Poetry can magnify experience.

— May Swenson

Poetry increases the feeling for reality.

— Wallace Stevens

The great poems are not about experience, but are the experience itself, felt in the body.

— David Whyte

It's very hard to look in a mirror and see anything which resembles what one feels one's self to be. I think that discomfort,…

— Jorie Graham

“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

Listen to presences inside poems.

— Rumi

I guess my poems feel to me a bit like they are doing something in relation to experience, i.e. time.

— Matthew Zapruder

“Poetry is a painting of the imaginations of the human mind, but the reader needs to feel it and touch it.”

— Adewale Joel

I think my poems immediately come out of the sensuous and emotional experiences I have.

— Sylvia Plath

The poetry that sustains me is when I feel that, for a minute, the clouds have parted and I've seen ecstasy or something

— Rita Dove

I wanted to pack a lot into the lyric, but not go beyond its bounds. Some have written that I wanted to expand what…

— Jorie Graham

Poetry can be dangerous, especially beautiful poetry, because it gives the illusion of having had the experience without actually going through it.

— Anonymous