Authors
Topics
Lists
Pictures
Resources
American Poet Quotes
Source
Report...
Retiring to the canopy of the bedroom, turning on the bedside light, taking the big dictionary to bed, clutching the unabridged bulk, heavy with the weight of all the meanings between these covers, smoothing the thin sheets, thick with accented syllables—all are exercises in the conscious regimen of dreamers, who toss words on their tongues while turning illuminated pages.
Harryette Mullen
Source
Report...
Let all Black Poets die as trumpets,
And be buried in the dust of marching feet.
Etheridge Knight
Source
Report...
On the beryl-rimmed rebecs of Ruby
Brought fresh from the hyaline streams,
She played on the banks of the Yuba
Such songs as she heard in her dreams.
Thomas Holley Chivers
Source
Report...
Every day I am deluged with reminders
that this is not
my land
and this is my land.
I do not believe in the war between races
but in this country
there is war.
Lorna Dee Cervantes
Source
Report...
Our children are beauty
with the right to be born.
Born anew at each a.m.
Like a child out of twilight,
flying toward sunlight,
Born anew at each a.m.
Piri Thomas
Source
Report...
Language that tells us, through a more or less emotional reaction,
something that can not be said.
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Source
Report...
The hoop dancer dances within what encircles him, demonstrating how the people live in motion within the circling spirals of time and space. They are no more limited than water and sky. At green corn dance time, water and sky come together, in Indian time, to make rain.
Paula Gunn Allen
Source
Report...
Only yield when you must, never "give up the ship," but fight on to the last "with a stiff upper lip!
Phoebe Cary
Source
Report...
A fastened woman
can be messed with, one too many times.
Nikky Finney
Source
Report...
Oh! somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright,
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville — mighty Casey has "struck out."
Ernest Thayer
Source
Report...
One of the greatest roles
ever created by Western man
has been the role of "Negro."
One of the greatest actors
to play the role has been
the "Nigger."
Henry Dumas
Source
Report...
Though Duty's face is stern, her path is best: They sweetly sleep who die upon her breast.
Henry Abbey
Source
Report...
We were made to believe / our faces betrayed us. / Our bodies were loud / with yellow / screaming flesh / needing to be silenced / behind barbed wire.
Janice Mirikitani
Source
Report...
I battered the cordons around me
And cradled my wings on the breeze,
Then soared to the uttermost reaches
With rapture, with power, with ease!
Georgia Douglas Johnson
Source
Report...
Is it for miracles
We live? I like it when the morning sun lights up my room Like a yellow jelly bean, an inner glow. May mutters: "Why ask questions?" or, "What are the questions you wish to ask?"
James Schuyler
Source
Report...
On Fame's eternal camping ground Their silent tents are spread, And Glory guards, with solemn round, The bivouac of the dead.
Theodore O'Hara
Source
Report...
She does not know
Her beauty,
She thinks her brown body
Has no glory.
If she could dance
Naked,
Under palm trees.
And see her image in the river
She would know.
But there are no palm trees
On the street,
And dish water gives back no images.
Waring Cuney
Source
Report...
He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much; who has enjoyed the trust of pure women, the respect of intelligent men, and the love of little children;…whose life was an inspiration, whose memory a benediction.
Bessie Anderson Stanley
Source
Report...
Thanksgiving-day, I fear, If one the solemn truth must touch, Is celebrated, not so much To thank the Lord for blessing o'er, As for the sake of getting more!
Will Carleton
Source
Report...
I will garden on the double run,
my rhythm obvious in the ringing rakes,
and trust in fate to keep me poor and kind
and work until my heart is short,
then go out slowly with a feeble grin,
my fingers flexing but my eyes gone gray
from cramps and the lack of oxygen.
Richard Hugo
Source
Report...
Poetry wants to make things mean more than they mean, says someone, as if we knew how much things meant, and in what unit of measure.
Rae Armantrout
Source
Report...
its music comes out the radio
drives beside me in my car. strolls along with me
down supermarket aisles
it's on television
and in the streets even when my walk is casual/undefined
it's overhead flashing lights
i find it in my mouth
when i would speak of other things.
Wanda Coleman
Source
Report...
I love the friendly faces of old sorrows;
I have no secrets that they do not know.
Karle Wilson Baker
Source
Report...
Some reckon their age by years, Some measure their life by art; But some tell their days by the flow of their tears And their lives by the moans of their hearts.
Abram Joseph Ryan
Source
Report...
Like a page dipped in ink, your cuff's in my coffee. / You have something to tell with unbuttoned sleeves.
Mary Jo Salter
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Quote of the day
Now if the harvest is over, And the world cold, Give me the bonus of laughter, As I lose hold.
John Betjeman
Related Quotes
By profession
Poet Quotes
Women Poets
By nationality
English Poets
British Poets
Italian Poets
By century
20th-century Poets
19th-century Poets
18th-century Poets
17th-century Poets
Featured Authors
Lists
Predictions that didn't happen
If it's on the Internet it must be true
Remarkable Last Words (or Near-Last Words)
Picture Quotes
Confucius
Philip James Bailey
Eleanor Roosevelt
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Popular Topics
life
love
nature
time
god
power
human
mind
work
art
heart
thought
men
day
×
Lib Quotes