ever been kidnapped

ever been kidnapped
by a poet
if i were a poet
i’d kidnap you
put you in my phrases and meter….
- Yolande Cornelia -

The poet is in the end

The poet is in the end probably more afraid

of the dogmatist who wants to extract the message

from the poem and throw the poem away than

he is of the sentimentalist who says,

“Oh, just let me enjoy the poem.”

- Robert Penn Warren -

To see the Summer Sky

To see the Summer Sky
Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie -
True Poems flee.
- Emily Dickinson -

Poetry should

Poetry should… should strike the reader

as a wording of his own highest thoughts,

and appear almost a remembrance.

- John Keats -

The distinction between historian and poet

The distinction between historian and poet is

not in the one writing prose and the other verse…

the one describes the thing that has been,

and the other a kind of thing that might be.

Hence poetry is something more philosophic

and of graver import than history,

since its statements are of the nature rather of universals,

whereas those of history are singulars.

- Aristotle -

Out of the quarrel

Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric;

out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry.

- W.B. Yeats -

Poetry is the journal

Poetry is the journal of the sea animal living on land,

wanting to fly in the air.

Poetry is a search for syllables to shoot at

the barriers of the unknown and the unknowable.

Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are

made and why they go away.

- Carl Sandburg -

He who draws noble delights

He who draws noble delights from

sentiments of poetry is a true poet,

though he has never written a line in all his life.

- George Sand -

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.
- Mark Strand -

Poetry is just the evidence of life

Poetry is just the evidence of life.

If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.

- Leonard Cohen -