Much like my book of hymns and praise songs, this one is for my favorite works of poetry.
Here are a few (quie a few) quotes on poetry to start off with, then onto the poems themselves.
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Poetry is when an emotion has found it's thought and the thought has found words. ~ Robert Frost
A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. ~ Robert Frost
A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language. ~W. H. Auden
Each word bears its weight, so you have to read my poems quite slowly. ~Anne Stevenson
Poetry is the universal language which the heart holds with nature and itself. ~ William Hazlitt
Poetry must have something in it that is barbaric, vast and wild. ~Denis Diderot
Poetry
makes nothing happen.
It survives
in the valley of its saying. Maxine Kumin
Poetry is plucking at the heartstrings, and making music with them. ~Dennis Gabor
Poetry is, above all, an approach to the truth of feeling . . .. A fine poem will seize your imagination intellectually—that is, when you reach it, you will reach it intellectually too— but the way is through emotion, through what we call feeling. ~Muriel Rukeyser
Poetry is at least an elegance and at most a revelation. ~Robert Fitzgerald
Poetry isn’t a profession, it’s a way of life. It’s an empty basket; you put your life into it and make something out of that. ~Mary Oliver
Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things. ~T.S. Eliot
When power leads man towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses. ~John Fitzgerald Kennedy
The sources of poetry are in the spirit seeking completeness. ~ Muriel Rukeyser
To see the Summer Sky
Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie—
True Poems flee— ~ Emily Dickinson
Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge. ~ William Wordsworth
You can tear a poem apart to see what makes it tick . . .. You're back with the mystery of having been moved by words. The best craftsmanship always leaves holes and gaps . . . so that something that is not in the poem can creep, crawl, flash or thunder in. ~ Dylan Thoma
Poetry is thoughts that breathe, and words that burn. ~ Thomas Gray
Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason. Novalis For me, poetry is an impish attempt to paint the colour of the wind. ~ Maxwell Bodenheim
Poetry is not a profession, it is a destiny. ~Mikhail Dudan
