My brain hums with scraps of poetry and madness.

"But you hate poetry!

Real haiku is the soul of poetry. Anything that is not actually present in one's heart is not haiku. The moon glows, flowers bloom, insects cry, water flows. There is no place we cannot find flowers or think of the moon. This is the essence of haiku. Go beyond the restrictions of your era, forget about purpose or meaning, separate yourself from historical limitations-there you will find the essence of true art, religion, and science.

Writing poetry and reading books causes brain damage.

Reading someone's poetry is like seeing them naked" -Davis Pritchett

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.

That's what I do: I make coffee and occasionally succumb to suicidal nihilism. But you shouldn't worry - poetry is still first. Cigarettes and alcohol follow

There is also a third kind of madness, which is possession by the Muses, enters into a delicate and virgin soul, and there inspiring frenzy, awakens lyric....But he, who, not being inspired and having no touch of madness in his soul, comes to the door and thinks he will get into the temple by the help of art--he, I say, and his poetry are not admitted; the sane man is nowhere at all when he enters into rivalry with the madman.

I sense the world might be more dreamlike, metaphorical, and poetic than we currently believe--but just as irrational as sympathetic magic when looked at in a typically scientific way. I wouldn't be surprised if poetry--poetry in the broadest sense, in the sense of a world filled with metaphor, rhyme, and recurring patterns, shapes, and designs--is how the world works. The world isn't logical, it's a song.

Rem tene, verba sequentur: grasp the subject, and the words will follow. This, I believe, is the opposite of what happens with poetry, which is more a case of verba tene, res sequenter: grasp the words, and the subject will follow.

"McGough: I'm sorry. I'm afraid I've caught poetry.

The young student sits with his head bent over his books, and his mind straying in youth's dreamland; where prose is prowling on the desk and poetry hiding in the heart.

I've had it with these cheap sons of bitches who claim they love poetry but never buy a book.

Publishing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.

"Let us not subside into a single mandatory way of thinking or feeling, immersed by a spirit of self-gratification. But let's dig into the fresh energy of new boundaries and at the same time pick the blossoms of poetry welling up along the path of our life, and enjoy the innocence of the little wonders of every day.

This is perhaps the most noble aim of poetry, to attach ourselves to the world around us, to turn desire into love, to embrace, finally what always evades us, what is beyond, but what is always there ? the unspoken, the spirit, the soul.

Some of the greatest poetry is revealing to the reader the beauty in something that was so simple you had taken it for granted.

We have seen the best minds of our generation destroyed by boredom at poetry readings.

Poetry makes life what lights and music do the stage.

I am in the middle of it: chaos and poetry; poetry and love and again, complete chaos. Pain, disorder, occasional clarity; and at the bottom of it all: only love; poetry. Sheer enchantment, fear, humiliation. It all comes with love

And medecine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love: these are what we stay alive for.

All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling. To be natural is to be obvious, and to be obvious is to be inartistic.

I could do with a bit more excess. From now on I'm going to be immoderate--and volatile--I shall enjoy loud music and lurid poetry. I shall be rampant.

"Whatever you get out of poetry - take it. take it. take it.