Poet Quotes

An updated notion of genius would have to center around one's mastery of information and its dissemination.

Kenneth Goldsmith

If there is any truth to my parenting the dreamwork movement, it comes from the power of the press.

Far as distress the soul can wound
'Tis pain in each degree;
Bliss goes but to a certain bound,
Beyond is agony.

Frances Greville

See the wasp. He has pretty yellow stripes around his body, and a darning needle in his tail. If you will pat the wasp upon the tail we will give you a nice picture book.

And if my heart isn't in my mouth it's because it knows its place.

Phyllis Gotlieb

Solace of the night sky,
the hardly moving
face of the clock.

But he lay like a warrior taking his rest,
With his martial cloak around him.

If I told you about a land of love...would you swallow it as a remedy?

The last cobwebs
of fog in the
black firtrees are flakes
of white ash in the world's hearth.

Denise Levertov

Kindness is not like a barter, so much for so much; or so much by contract, and my duty done. But kindness is like a righteousness or like a worship, not done unless it be done all I can. For the heart must run forth without measure like a child, and kindness be wound around like a child's arms about the neck, not by measure, but as tightly and as long as they can be.

James Vila Blake

Poetry is the vision in a man's soul which he translates as best he can with all the means at his disposal.

Alas! Am I born for this,
To wear this slavish chain?
Deprived of all created bliss,
Through hardship, toil and pain!

George Moses Horton

Some man of ages past
Observed their goings; and devised their titles,
Forming the constellations. For the name
Of each star singly none could tell or learn; —
So numerous are they everywhere, and many
Of the same size and color, as they roll.
Thus he bethought him to combine them so,
That, ranged in neighborhood, they might present
Images, — each taking his proper name,
And henceforth none rising to doubt or guess at.

The past has flown away. The coming month and year do not exist. Ours only is the present's tiny point.

Mahmoud Shabestari

Like as the armed knight
Appointed to the field,
With this world will I fight,
And faith shall be my shield…
I am not she that list
My anchor to let fall,
For every drizzling mist
My ship substantial.

I do not write for the public. You are my public and I hope to convert you.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

I know I could enchain him with a smile:
And lead him captive with a gentle word,
I scorn my look should ever man beguile,
Or other speech, than meaning to afford.

Elizabeth Tanfield Cary

How many have died without having given even one kiss to their chimera!

Théophile Gautier

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

My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding thorns;
Love is the fire and sighs the smoke, the ashes shame and scorns;
The fuel Justice layeth on, and Mercy blows the coals;
The metal in this furnace wrought are men's defiled souls.

Robert Southwell

'Qui procul hinc', the legend's writ,—
The frontier-grave is far away—
'Qui ante diem periit:
Sed miles, sed pro patria.'

Even
After
All this time
The Sun never says to the Earth, "You owe me." Look
What happens
With a love like that,
It lights the whole sky.

Daniel Ladinsky

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

Since the journey is a metaphor - the most ambiguous and seductive of metaphors, we tell ourselves - it can also be born of immobility. There is no need to drag our bodies around so much, all dressed up. It's hot, there are flies, diseases. It is enough to close our eyes, seated on a chair in the shade, to float on the waves of imagination. Isn't that what books are there for?

In loss itself I find assuagement: having lost the treasure, I've nothing to fear.

Juana Inés de la Cruz