American Poet Quotes

A million butterflies rose up from South America, All together, and flew in a gold storm toward Spain...

Winfield Townley Scott

If you will tell me why the fen appears impassable, I then will tell you why I think that I can cross it if I try.

Oh I'm in love with the janitor's boy,
And the janitor's boy loves me;
He's going to hunt for a desert isle
In our geography.

A man's motive in the small actions of daily life, like resting a moment on his pitchfork in the sun and listening intently, may be the most important thing about that man.

For should your hands drop white and empty
All the toys of the world would break.

John Frederick Nims

All the things we hide in water
Hoping we won't see them go.
Forests growing under water
Press against the ones we know.

I need to feel that the language in my poems is alive, in the sense of talking on the phone to a friend sharing gossip.

Deborah Garrison

And the faith that grows out of questioning is stronger than the faith born of blind acceptance. It can withstand the shocks of circumstance. Only he who questions the universe and questions it in utter honesty can grow in his comprehension of the truth.

James Dillet Freeman

Chemistry having its equations beyond our range of inequation.

Robert Duncan (poet)

The West for me means ambition, the East contentment. My heart is ever in one, my soul in the other.

But when the conquered spirit breaks free And indicates a new light Who'll take care of the cats?

Uniformity, in its motives, its goals, its far-ranging consequences, is the natural enemy of poetry, not to mention the enemy of trees, the soil, the exemplary life therein.

Carolyn D. Wright

Here's to the wind blowing against this lighted house and to the vast, windless spaces between the stars.

the Revolution aint dead
its tired,
and jest resting.

Carolyn Rodgers

Girl, when he gives you kisses twain, use one, and let the other stay; And hoard it, for moons die, red fades, and you may need a kiss—some day.

Ridgely Torrence

Ireland regards sex, when she regards it at all, with an entirely primitive and practical eye.

All finite things reveal infinitude: The mountain with its singular bright shade Like the blue shine on freshly frozen snow, The after-light upon ice-burdened pines; Odor of basswood upon a mountain slope, A scene beloved of bees; Silence of water above a sunken tree: The pure serene of memory of one man,- A ripple widening from a single stone Winding around the waters of the world.

Theodore Roethke

Now: For those of you who are lazy I can offer no hope: death will not bring you an eternal resting place. You may rest, if this is your wish, for a while. Not only must you use your abilities after death, however, but you must face up to yourself for those that you did not use during your previous existence...

I believe if I should die,
And you should kiss my eyelids where I lie
Cold, dead, and dumb to all the world contains,
The folded orbs would open at thy breath,
And from its exile in the Isles of Death
Life would come gladly back along my veins.

Mary Ashley Townsend

Darlings of the forest! Blossoming alone When Earth's grief is sorest For her jewels gone - Ere the last snow-drift melts, your tender buds have blown.

Rose Terry Cooke

Clear and simple in white and gold, Meadows blossom, of sunlit spaces, - The field is full as it well can hold And white with the drift of the ox-eye daisies!

Dora Read Goodale

The person who wrote the poem can tell you more about the poem than anyone else.

Painters have often taught writers how to see.

I am called "Venus Hottentot."
I left Capetown with a promise
of revenue: half the profits
and my passage home: A boon!
Master's brother proposed the trip;
the magistrate granted me leave
I would return to my family
a duchess, with watered-silk
dresses and money to grow food.

Elizabeth Alexander (poet)

By the power of eloquence old truth receives a new habit; though its essence be the same, yet its visage is so altered that it may currently pass and be accepted as a novelty.

Michael Wigglesworth