Poets Quotes - Page 9

A poem is a meteor.

Wallace Stevens

Criticism is like politics: if you don't make your own you are by default accepting the status quo and are finally yourself responsible for whatever the status quo does to you.

your smile.is the ultimategolden dream.all the poemsin the worldare waking up from.

Therefore, since the world has stillMuch good, but much less good than ill,And while the sun and moon endureLuck's a chance, but trouble's sure,I'd face it as a wise man would,And train for ill and not for good.

One could say that artists are people who think naturally in highly patterned ways.

a silent night. - the most eloquent poem i have ever read.

We must listen to poets.

Gaston Bachelard

The pure playfulness of certain wholly whimsical portions of (Charles) Cros’s work should not obscure the fact that at the center of some of his most beautiful poems a revolver is leveled straight at us.

When one does something, one must do it wholly and well. Those bastard existences where you sell suet all day and write poetry at night are made for mediocre minds – like those horses that are equally good for saddle and carriage, the worst kind, that can neither jump a ditch nor pull a plow.

Gustave Flaubert

A pear should come to the table popped with juice,Ripened in warmth and served in warmth. On termsLike these, autumn beguiles the fatalist.

Wallace Stevens

At the edge of madness you howl diamonds and pearls.

Aberjhani

When there's a moon the shadows in the house grow larger;invisible hands draw back the curtains,a pallid finger writes forgotten words on dustof the piano...

Again I resume the longlesson: how small a thingcan be pleasing, how littlein this hard world it takesto satisfy the mindand bring it to its rest.

Freud thought that a psychosis was a waking dream, and that poets were daydreamers too, but I wonder if the reverse is not as often true, and that madness is a fiction lived in like a rented house

William H. Gass

depth and substance.the two most exquisite qualities. be it in a poemor a person.

Whatever you get out of poetry - take it. take it. take it. Words are better off felt than understood.

I'd spent way more years worrying about how to look like a poet -- buying black clothes, smearing on scarlet lipstick, languidly draping myself over thrift-store furniture -- than I had learning how to assemble words in some discernible order.

Mary Karr

Everything you invent is true: you can be sure of that. Poetry is a subject as precise as geometry.

Poetry makes nothing happen.

Not words. nor laughter. but rather someonewho will fall in lovewith your silence.

because some thingssometimesaren't ours to hold,but just beautiful to listen to.

it was the kind of moonthat I would want to send back to my ancestorsand gift to my descendantsso they know that I too,have been bruised...by beauty.

i want to be in love with youthe same wayi am in love with the moonwith the lightshiningout of its soul.

...if you do not even understand what words say,how can you expect to pass judgementon what words conceal?

H.D.

Nobody reads poetry, we are told at every inopportune moment. I read poetry. I am somebody. I am the people, too. It can be allowed that an industrious quantity of contemporary American poetry is consciously written for a hermetic constituency; the bulk is written for the bourgeoisie, leaving a lean cut for labor. Only the hermetically aimed has a snowball's chance in hell of reaching its intended ears. One proceeds from this realization. A staggering figure of vibrant, intelligent people can and do live without poetry, especially without the poetry of their time. This figure includes the unemployed, the rank and file, the union brass, banker, scientist, lawyer, doctor, architect, pilot, and priest. It also includes most academics, most of the faculty of the humanities, most allegedly literary editors and most allegedly literary critics. They do so--go forward in their lives, toward their great reward, in an engulfing absence of poetry--without being perceived or perceiving themselves as hobbled or deficient in any significant way. It is nearly true, though I am often reminded of a Transtromer broadside I saw in a crummy office building in San Francisco:We got dressed and showed the houseYou live well the visitor saidThe slum must be inside you.If I wanted to understand a culture, my own for instance, and if I thought such an understanding were the basis for a lifelong inquiry, I would turn to poetry first. For it is my confirmed bias that the poets remain the most 'stunned by existence,' the most determined to redeem the world in words..

The aching in my chest isn't because I miss you,it's realizing that you have become someone I no longer know,your fears, your 4 am thoughts, your achievements,are things I no longer have an equivalent to.Who we were and who we are are four different people, and the me from now doesn't relate to the me from then, let alone to the you from now.-Tanzy Sayadi and Jarod Kintz

I grew up in this town, my poetry was born between the hill and the river, it took its voice from the rain, and like the timber, it steeped itself in the forests.

Want of imagination makes things unreal enough to be destroyed. By imagination I mean knowledge and love. I mean compassion. People of power kill children, the old send the young to die, because they have no imagination. They have power. Can you have power and imagination at the same time? Can you kill people you don’t know and have compassion for them at the same time?

To hear never-heard sounds, To see never-seen colors and shapes, To try to understand the imperceptible Power pervading the world; To fly and find pure ethereal substances That are not of matter But of that invisible soul pervading reality. To hear another soul and to whisper to another soul; To be a lantern in the darkness Or an umbrella in a stormy day; To feel much more than know. To be the eyes of an eagle, slope of a mountain; To be a wave understanding the influence of the moon; To be a tree and read the memory of the leaves; To be an insignificant pedestrian on the streets Of crazy cities watching, watching, and watching. To be a smile on the face of a woman And shine in her memory As a moment saved without planning.

Dejan Stojanovic

I act as the tongue of you,... tied in your mouth . . . . in mine it begins to be loosened.

A poet should be so crafty with words that he is envied even for his pains.

Poets are shameless with their experiences: they exploit them.

Friedrich Nietzsche

The poet, therefore, is truly the thief of fire.He is responsible for humanity, for animals even; he will have to make sure his visions can be smelled, fondled, listened to; if what he brings back from beyond has form, he gives it form; if it has none, he gives it none. A language must be found…of the soul, for the soul and will include everything: perfumes, sounds colors, thought grappling with thought

a flower knows, when its butterfly will return, and if the moon walks out, the sky will understand;but now it hurts, to watch you leave so soon,when I don't know, if you will ever come back.

A poet's work . . . to name the unnamable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world and stop it from going to sleep.

in a worldfull oftemporary thingsyou area perpetual feeling.

Once, poets were magicians. Poets were strong, stronger than warriors or kings — stronger than old hapless gods. And they will be strong once again.

Greg Bear

there's always been a little sadnessinside my happiness.i've never been able to separate the two.

Ava

you wanted it all to make senseand you wanted the most complicated answer, but the answer is simple.just be.

Ava

love is my thighs,this belly,my eyes.love is my speech,the search,my cry.love is myself in the mirror.i will see love every time.

Ava

woman-another word for beginning.another word for revolution.another word for healing.another word for being.another word for me.

Ava

the woman is rain,and when she falls,she is a monsoon.to love her is to drown.

Ava

you came in slowly like the fog and consumed me.

Ava

love is myself in the mirror.i will see love every time.

Ava

i open for you like a flower.i let you in like a new day.

Ava

i know it all ends the same,but i was interested in seeinghow you would break my heart.

Ava

we talk of plans that are going to happen.we talk of the future,as if we know we will last.there is a sort of comfort in that.

Ava

i wanted to destroy you.you are mine to ruin.something so beautifulshould only exist for me.

Ava

let your love cover me like skin.i want the whole world to see.

Ava

i feel everything.i do not know how to un-feeland to not feelis to stop the sun.

Ava

i took it off.i did not want to carry it with me anymore.

Ava

every choice i have ever made after you existedhas been dependent on exactlyhow close i can have you next to meand how long i can get you to stay.

Ava

i am soft again.there is water and it surrounds me.there is feeling and i can feel it.i am awake and aliveand swollen and heavy with love.i am changingand i am loving change.

Ava

i am awake and aliveand swollen and heavywith love.

Ava

i'm so hookedon how your mind works,on what you notice,on everything that excites you.i'm so caught up inhow you see the world,how you see everythingand still offer up your lovefor all to take it.you give me a glimpse of your heartand i can't tell youhow much you turn me on.

Ava

i am changingand i am loving change.

Ava

i took a night drive.i needed to get away.i needed to knowit's okay to goand have no destination,where time moves slowor doesn't exist.that life can be like this,aimless wandering,just breathing,living,driving forever underneath the stars.

Ava

Some writers write to forget. Some forget to write.

Mokokoma Mokhonoana

I am Stephanie Lahart! An intelligent, empowered, and confident Black Queen. Purposely Fearless!

Stephanie Lahart

Nor is there wanting in the pressSome spirit to stand simply forth,Heroic in it nakedness,Against the uttermost of earth.The tale of earth's unhonored thingsSounds nobler there than 'neath the sun;And the mind whirls and the heart sings,And a shout greets the daring one.

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