Here's a link to a site with quotes by various well-known poets . The quotes sum up in a nutshell the poets' views on poetry itself. Although I'm not particularly a fan of Allen Ginsberg, perhaps he said it best with the following:
"Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It's that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that's what the poet does."
What is poetry to you, fellow writer, reader, and lover of verse?
Poetry Quotes :**:
Full Version: What Is Poetry?
Nice site - thanks for posting it 
Promptly bookmarked it and will enjoy for a long time to come! Many thanks.
As for what poetry is to me...
A craft, a field of art, a challenge.
A way of conveying concepts and experiences too complicated by human phenomenon to be plainly and completely communicated through straightforward explanation.
I very much like one definition of poetry I ran across in a textbook once. The poem is a vessel for holding meaning. It's form and structure, its "body" on the page should perfectly suit its own meaning and subject matter the way various vessels for holding liquid are suited to their intended contents. (You don't drink fine wine out of a saucepan,for example, nor hot cocoa out of crystal brandy snifters. Poetry has its parallels.) I paraphrase, but that's the gist of it. This is my "head answer".
My heart answer...
Poetry is...
A clean kitchen counter scrubbed by summer's first breezes, the scent of hot roses heavy in the air wafting through the open window.
The curve of my daughters profile as she sits reading in a shaft of light.
The cat's fur, thick, luxurious beneath my fingers.
Smooth, cool sheets and the sound of whip-poor-wills in the dark of night.
As for what poetry is to me...
A craft, a field of art, a challenge.
A way of conveying concepts and experiences too complicated by human phenomenon to be plainly and completely communicated through straightforward explanation.
I very much like one definition of poetry I ran across in a textbook once. The poem is a vessel for holding meaning. It's form and structure, its "body" on the page should perfectly suit its own meaning and subject matter the way various vessels for holding liquid are suited to their intended contents. (You don't drink fine wine out of a saucepan,for example, nor hot cocoa out of crystal brandy snifters. Poetry has its parallels.) I paraphrase, but that's the gist of it. This is my "head answer".
My heart answer...
Poetry is...
A clean kitchen counter scrubbed by summer's first breezes, the scent of hot roses heavy in the air wafting through the open window.
The curve of my daughters profile as she sits reading in a shaft of light.
The cat's fur, thick, luxurious beneath my fingers.
Smooth, cool sheets and the sound of whip-poor-wills in the dark of night.
Poetry to me is the smile on my small girl's face, those great brown eyes and tilt of the head, that mischievious look and call of my name. The musky warm smell first thing in the morning when she welcomes me with the hug of angels, it fills my heart and stomach with so much warmth, that for me is the essence of poetry.
Daniel
Daniel
Dan:
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QUOTE
A poet is somebody who feels, and who expresses his feeling through words.
This may sound easy. It isn't.
A lot of people think or believe or know they feel -- but that's thinking or believing or knowing; not feeling. And poetry is feeling -- not knowing or believing or thinking.
Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel. Why? Because whenever you think or you believe or you know, you're a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you're nobody-but-yourself.
To be nobody-but-yourself -- in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else -- means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
As for expressing nobody-but-yourself in words, that means working just a little harder than anybody who isn't a poet can possibly imagine. Why? Because nothing is quite as easy as using words like somebody else. We all of us do exactly this nearly all of the time -- and whenever we do it, we're not poets.
If, at the end of your first ten or fifteen years of fighting and working and feeling, you find you've written one line of one poem, you'll be very lucky indeed.
And so my advice to all young people who wish to become poets is: do something easy, like learning how to blow up the world -- unless you're not only willing, but glad, to feel and work and fight till you die.
Does this sound dismal? It isn't.
It's the most wonderful life on earth.
Or so I feel.
E.E. Cummings 1955
This may sound easy. It isn't.
A lot of people think or believe or know they feel -- but that's thinking or believing or knowing; not feeling. And poetry is feeling -- not knowing or believing or thinking.
Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel. Why? Because whenever you think or you believe or you know, you're a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you're nobody-but-yourself.
To be nobody-but-yourself -- in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else -- means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
As for expressing nobody-but-yourself in words, that means working just a little harder than anybody who isn't a poet can possibly imagine. Why? Because nothing is quite as easy as using words like somebody else. We all of us do exactly this nearly all of the time -- and whenever we do it, we're not poets.
If, at the end of your first ten or fifteen years of fighting and working and feeling, you find you've written one line of one poem, you'll be very lucky indeed.
And so my advice to all young people who wish to become poets is: do something easy, like learning how to blow up the world -- unless you're not only willing, but glad, to feel and work and fight till you die.
Does this sound dismal? It isn't.
It's the most wonderful life on earth.
Or so I feel.
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