Then I discovered I loved writing poetry more than fiction.

The sentences I write have their roots in song and poetry, and take their bearings from music and painting, as much as from the need to impart mere information, or mirror anything. I am not a realist writer, even if I seem like one.

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

The subject of Finnish poetry ought to have a special interest for the Japanese student, if only for the reason that Finnish poetry comes more closely in many respects to Japanese poetry than any other form of Western poetry.

I see people who talk about America, and then undermine it by not paying attention to its soul, to its poetry. I see polarization, reductionism and superficiality.

I got scouted for modeling on the street. I'm such a tomboy - still am. I just never thought about modeling before, but I thought, 'Ooh, interesting, similar world, perhaps it's a way into something.' Then, I was on my third photo shoot ever, and Adam Leech from 'Downtown Abbey' saw me reading poetry and asked me to recite some.

What actually makes poetry poetry is of course impossible to define. We recognize it when we hear it, when we see it, but we can't define it.

The importance of poetry is not measured, finally, by what the poet says but by how he says it.

Poetry operates by hints and dark suggestions. It is full of secrets and hidden formulae, like a witch's brew.

Poetry is also the physical self of the poet, and it is impossible to separate the poet from his poetry.

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

Manifesting that order of poetry where we can at last grow up to that which we stored up as we grew.

But every great scripture, whether Hebrew, Indian, Persian, or Chinese, apart from its religious value will be found to have some rare and special beauty of its own; and in this respect the original Bible stands very high as a monument of sublime poetry and of artistic prose.

Dealing with poetry is a daunting task, simply because the reason one does it as an editor at all is because one is constantly coming to terms with one's own understanding of how to understand the world.

There's a level at which, if you take poetry seriously, the focus it involves... that never goes away.

Ted Hughes is dead. That's a fact, OK. Then there's something called the poetry of Ted Hughes. The poetry of Ted Hughes is more real, very soon, than the myth that Ted Hughes existed - because that can't be proven.

The experiment of poetry, as far as I am concerned, happens when the poem carries you beyond where you could have reasonably expected to go.

Lucknow, as far as I have heard, is always known for its culture, literature and poetry. So it has set a cultural benchmark for the entire country.

Poetry is the lens we use to interrogate the history we stand on and the future we stand for.

I studied English at the College of Wooster in Ohio, and I did an M.F.A. in Poetry at Columbia.

In the language of poetry, where every word is weighed, nothing is usual or normal. Not a single stone and not a single cloud above it. Not a single day and not a single night after it. And above all, not a single existence, not anyone's existence in this world.

So, poetry becomes a means for useful dialogue between people who are not only unknown, but mute to each other. It produces a dialogue among people that guards all of us against manipulation by our so-called leaders.

Never fear: Thank Home, and Poetry, and the Force behind both.

But the gravest difficulty, and perhaps the most important, in poetry meant solely for recitation, is the difficulty of achieving verbal beauty, or rather of making verbal beauty tell.