I think that the job of poetry its political job is to refresh the idea of justice which is going dead in us all the time.

Poetry had far better imply things than preach them directly... in the open pulpit her voice grows hoarse and fails.

Well if this is poetry I'm certainly never going to write any myself.

What she did was to open our eyes to details of country life such as teaching us names of wild flowers and getting us to draw and paint and learn poetry.

Whereas with poetry no one has to show anybody really and you don't have to tell anyone you're doing it.

If I do a poetry reading I want people to walk out and say they feel better for having been there - not because you've done a comedy performance but because you're talking about your father dying or having young children things that touch your soul.

Nobody ever told me what to read or ever put poetry in my way.

I will not leave a corner of my consciousness covered up but saturate myself with the strange and extraordinary new conditions of this life and it will all refine itself into poetry later on.

I despair of ever writing excellent poetry.

Poetry is one of the few nasty childhood habits I've managed to grow out of.

Conversation may be compared to a lyre with seven chords - philosophy art poetry love scandal and the weather.

Poetry says the things that I can't say. I read a lot but I never write it.

Society's dark hull drifts further and further away. It is this place - the place of our separation our distinction - that much of his poetry occupies.

No art form points like poetry to this originality of language as to its essential and abiding concern.

Poetry brings all possible experience to the same degree: a degree in the consciousness beyond which the consciousness itself cannot go.

The end of poetry is not to create a physical condition which shall give pleasure to the mind... The end of poetry is not an after-effect not a pleasurable memory of itself but an immediate constant and even unpleasant insistence upon itself.

To a poet the mere making of a poem can seem to solve the problem of truth but only a problem of art is solved in poetry.

And inasmuch as the bridge is a symbol of all such poetry as I am interested in writing it is my present fancy that a year from now I'll be more contented working in an office than ever before.

Poetry is innocent not wise. It does not learn from experience because each poetic experience is unique.

Since the printing press came into being poetry has ceased to be the delight of the whole community of man it has become the amusement and delight of the few.

Poetry is a mixture of common sense which not all have with an uncommon sense which very few have.

All the modern verse plays they're terrible they're mostly about the poetry. It's more important that the play is first.

Let my life as Poet begin. I want the life of the Poet. I have labored for over twelve years one thousand pages of prose. Now I want the easiness of poetry. The brevity of the poem.

Short fiction is the medium I love the most because it requires that I bring everything I've learned about poetry - the concision the ability to say something as vividly as possible - but also the ability to create a narrative that though lacking a novel's length satisfies the reader.