Artifacts Quote by W. H. Auden

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

— William Carlos Williams

A poem is really a kind of machine for producing the poetic state by means of words.

— Paul Verlaine

A fine poem combines the elements of meaning, music, and a form like a living frame that holds it together.

— Arnold Adoff

A poem is a small machine made out of words.

— William Carlos Williams

A poem is a small machine made of words.

— William Carlos Williams

A poem is like a painting.

— Horace

a poem is like a wine glass in which you can hold up a little bit of reality and taste it.

— Gwen Harwood

A poem is a flexible thing, and a poem is a poem.

— Juan Felipe Herrera

A poem is a record of a discovery.

— Ted Kooser

A poem is, so to speak, a way of making you forget how you wrote it.

— Randall Jarrell

A poem is what the reader lives through under the guidance of the text and experiences as relevant to the text.

— Louise Rosenblatt

A poem is a box, a thing, to put other things in. For safe keeping.

— Marianne Boruch