Peace Quote by Tony Hoagland

“The nature of poems Is a matter of words and deeds An intimate encounter of voice In the ache of the heart In the…

— Kendall Dana Lockerman

“Poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity for our existence. It forms the quality of light from which we predicate our…

— Audre Lorde

A poem is a small machine made of words. . .Its movement is intrinsic, undulant, a physical more than a literary character.

— William Carlos Williams

Poetry is a dangerous profession between conflict and resolution, between feeling and thought, between becoming and being, between the ultra-personal and the universal -…

— May Sarton

A poem is an instant of lucidity in which the entire organism participates.

— Charles Simic

The poem has a social effect of some kind whether or not the poet wills it to have. It has a kenetic force, it…

— Denise Levertov

The meaning of a poem is in the cadences and the shape of the lines and the pulse of the thought which is given…

— George Oppen

“Poetry is a will to put things right, an imaginary solution, a way of avoiding a catastrophe that already happened. Poetry is an escape,…

— Aase Berg

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

Every authentic poem contributes to the labour of poetry... to bring together what life has separated or violence has torn apart...

— John Berger

“Poetry emerges from the depths of struggle. It comes up fighting, demanding to be heard.”

— Aisha Mirza

What characterizes a poem is its necessary dependence on words as much as its struggle to transcend them.

— Octavio Paz