Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.

Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.

Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks.

Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.

Poetry is the lifeblood of rebellion, revolution, and the raising of consciousness.

Poetry is not a matter of feelings, it is a matter of language. It is language which creates feelings.

When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.

Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.

Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.

Poetry may make us from time to time a little more aware of the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being, to which we rarely penetrate; for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves.

With me poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion.

Listen, real poetry doesn’t say anything; it just ticks off the possibilities. Opens all doors. You can walk through any one that suits you.

The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.

You can find poetry in your everyday life, your memory, in what people say on the bus, in the news, or just what’s in your heart.

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.

I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled poets to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean.

A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.

When I began to listen to poetry, it’s when I began to listen to the stones, and I began to listen to what the clouds had to say, and I began to listen to others. And I think, most importantly for all of us, then you begin to learn to listen to the soul, the soul of yourself in here, which is also the soul of everyone else.

A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds.

My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.