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Poetry Quotes

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Poetry Quotes

“All poetry like every work of art proceeds from a swift vision of things.”

Art Poetry Vision Works Of Art

Book:Louis Lambert

Source: Louis Lambert

“Poetry is one of the ancient arts, and it began, as did all the fine arts, within the original wilderness of the earth. Also, it began through the process of seeing, and feeling, and hearing, and smelling, and touching, and then remembering--I mean remembering in words--what these perceptual experiences were like, while trying to describe the endless invisible fears and desires of our inner lives.”

Trying Mean Art Feelings Earth Remember Desire Poetry Process Seeing Fine Originals Ancient Hearing Endless Invisible Wilderness Poetry Is Touching Inner Life Fine Arts Ancient Art

Book:A Poetry Handbook

Source: A Poetry Handbook

“Men of real talents in Arms have commonly approved themselves patrons of the liberal arts and friends to the poets, of their own as well as former times. In some instances by acting reciprocally, heroes have made poets, and poets heroes.”

Men Wells Art Made Real Poetry Acting Talent Poet Arms Hero Instance Former Approved Patron Liberal Arts Real Talent

Book:George Washington Remembers: Reflections on the French and Indian War

Source: George Washington Remembers: Reflections on the French and Indian War

“the ordinary man's experience is chaotic, irregular, fragmentary. [He] falls in love or reads Spinoza, and these two experiences have nothing to do with each other, or with the noise of the typewriter, or the smell of cooking; in the mind of the poet these experiences are always forming new wholes”

Men Mind Art Two Poetry Fall Poet Ordinary Cooking Falling In Love Smell Noise Chaotic Typewriters Ordinary Man Spinoza

Book:The Sacred Wood and Major Early Essays

Source: The Sacred Wood and Major Early Essays

“for what is the gift of the poet and the artist except to see the sights which others cannot see and to hear the sounds that others cannot hear?”

Art Poetry Artist Sound Poet Sight

Book:Bimbi: Stories for Children

Source: Bimbi: Stories for Children

“The art of poetry is to touch the passions, and its duty to lead them on the side of virtue.”

Art Poetry Passion Sides Virtue Duty Poetry Is

Author:William Cowper

“Poetry, with all its obscurity, has a more general as well as a more powerful dominion over the passions than the art of painting.”

Wells Art Poetry Passion Powerful Painting Dominion Obscurity

Book:The Portable Edmund Burke

Source: The Portable Edmund Burke

“For poetry, more than any other art, except music, has a compelling hold upon the spiritual side of life.”

Art Spiritual Poetry Sides Compelling

Book:A Victorian Village: Reminiscences of Other Days

Source: A Victorian Village: Reminiscences of Other Days

“Poetry, unlike music, is a meta-art, and relies upon non-physical structures for the production of its effects. In its case, the medium is syntax, grammar and logical continuity, which together form the carrier-wave of plain sense within which its deeper meanings are broadcast.”

Art Together Form Poetry Cases Effects Music Is Structure Wave Productions Deeper Mediums Rely Logical Grammar Continuity Carrier Rely Upon Syntax Deeper Meaning

Author:Don Paterson

“Poetry lies at the centre of the literary experience because it is the form that most clearly asserts the specificity of literature.”

Art Form Lying Poetry Literature Centre Specificity

Author:Jonathan Culler

“Of all the arts poetry (which owes its origin almost entirely to genius and will least be guided by precept or example) maintains the first rank.”

Firsts Art Poetry Example Genius

Book:The Critique of Judgment: Theory of the Aesthetic Judgment and Theory of the Teleological Judgment: Critique of the Power of Judgment from the Author of Critique of Pure Reason, Critique of Practical Reason, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals & Dreams of a Spirit-Seer

Source: The Critique of Judgment: Theory of the Aesthetic Judgment and Theory of the Teleological Judgment: Critique of the Power of Judgment from the Author of Critique of Pure Reason, Critique of Practical Reason, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals & Dreams of a Spirit-Seer

“Poetry speaks most effectively and inclusively (whether in free or formal verse) when it recognizes its connection - without apology - to its musical and ritualistic origins.”

Art Poetry Speak Connections Musical Apology Verses Formal

Author:Dana Gioia

“I suggest that what artists do in all media can be summarized as deliberately performing the operations that occur instinctively during a ritualized behaviour: they simplify or formalize, repeat (sometimes with variation), exaggerate, and elaborate in both space and time for the purpose of attracting attention and provoking and manipulating emotional response.”

Art Sometimes Poetry Purpose Artist Space Attention Media Emotional Response Operations Performing Repeats Behaviour Provoking Time And Space Variation Simplify Emotional Response

Author:Ellen Dissanayake

“All art emulates the condition of ritual. That is what it comes from and to that it must always return for nourishment.”

Art Poetry Conditions Return Ritual Nourishment Emulate

Author:T. S. Eliot

“Poetry gets to be the poetry of life by successfully becoming first the poetry of poetry.”

Firsts Art Poetry Becoming

Author:John Hollander

“Those who are not very concerned with art want poems or pictures to record for them something they already know - as one might want a picture of a place he loves.”

Knows Want Art Might Poetry Records Concerned

Author:George Oppen

“Poems very seldom consist of poetry and nothing else; and pleasure can be derived also from their other ingredients. I am convinced that most readers, when they think they are admiring poetry, are deceived by inability to analyse their sensations, and that they are really admiring, not the poetry of the passage before them, but something else in it, which they like better than poetry.”

Thinking Art Poetry Pleasure Reader Convinced Sensations Ingredients Passages Inability Deceived Admiring

Book:Delphi Complete Works of A. E. Housman (Illustrated)

Source: Delphi Complete Works of A. E. Housman (Illustrated)

“Art as a whole is a riddle. Another way of putting this is to say that art expresses something while at the same time hiding it.”

Way Art Whole Poetry Hiding Another Way Riddle

Author:Theodor Adorno

“What the artist tries to do (either consciously or unconsciously) is to not only capture the essence of something but also to amplify it in order to more powerfully activate the same neural mechanisms that would be activated by the original object.”

Trying Art Would Be Poetry Artist Order Objects Essence Originals Capture Mechanism Activate Amplify

Author:Vilayanur S. Ramachandran

“It is a mistake to suppose, with some philosophers of aesthetics, that art and poetry aim to deal with the general and the abstract. This misconception has been foisted upon us by mediaeval logic. Art and poetry deal with the concrete of nature, not with separate 'particulars,' for such rows do not exist.”

Has Beens Art Poetry Deals Mistake Logic Aim Philosopher Abstract Concrete Aesthetics Misconception

Book:The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry: A Critical Edition

Source: The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry: A Critical Edition

“The function of poetry is to point out that the sign is not identical to the referent.”

Art Poetry Function Poetry Is Identical

Book:To honor Roman Jakobson: Essays on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, 11 October 1966

Source: To honor Roman Jakobson: Essays on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, 11 October 1966

“The end of writing is to instruct; the end of poetry is to instruct by pleasing.”

Writing Art Ends Poetry Poetry Is

Book:Selected poetry and prose

Source: Selected poetry and prose

“Poetry exists partly to undermine the certainties of an accepted intellectual system, by opening a fissure of awareness at which the reality of the unconquered world may enter.”

World May Art Reality Poetry Awareness Intellectual Accepted Opening Certainty

Book:Slip-shod sibyls: recognition, rejection and the woman poet

Source: Slip-shod sibyls: recognition, rejection and the woman poet

“The job of the poet (a job which can't be learned) consists of placing those objects of the visible world which have become invisible due to the glue of habit, in an unusual position which strikes the soul and gives them a tragic force.”

World Giving Art Soul Jobs Poetry Force Position Objects Poet Habit Dues Strikes Invisible Visible Tragic Unusual Glue

Author:Jean Cocteau

“The future of poetry is immense, because in poetry, where it is worthy of its high destinies, our race, as time goes on, will find an ever surer and surer stay ... More and more mankind will discover that we have to turn to poetry to interpret life for us, to console us, to sustain us.”

Art Poetry Turns Race Destiny Mankind Goes On Worthy Poetry Is Immense Console Time Goes On

Book:Poetry and Criticism of Matthew Arnold

Source: Poetry and Criticism of Matthew Arnold

“If what has happened in the one person were communicated directly to the other, all art would collapse, all the effects of art would disappear.”

Ifs Persons Art Poetry Happened Effects Disappear Collapse

Author:Paul Valery

“No longer do we accept the 'sublimation model' according to which 'the function of art is to sublimate or transform experience, raising it from ordinary to extraordinary, from commonplace to unique, from low to high'.”

Art Poetry Accepting Unique Models Lows Ordinary Art Is Function Extraordinary Commonplace

Author:Rosalind E. Krauss

“Poetry is not only the most concise way of conveying the human experience; it also offers the highest possible standards for any linguistic operation.”

Way Humans Art Poetry Offers Highest Standards Operations Poetry Is Human Experience Concise Conveying

Book:On Grief And Reason: Essays

Source: On Grief And Reason: Essays

“The primary function of poetry, as of all the arts, is to make us more aware of ourselves and the world around us. I do not know if such increased awareness makes us more moral or more efficient. I hope not. I think it makes us more human, and I am quite certain it makes us more difficult to deceive.”

Ifs Thinking Knows World Humans Art Poetry Certain Difficult Moral Awareness Art Is Function Primaries Efficient Deceiving

Author:W. H. Auden

“The primary pigment of poetry is the IMAGE.”

Art Poetry Primaries Poetry Is Pigment

Book:Ezra Pound and the Visual Arts

Source: Ezra Pound and the Visual Arts

“The poetic myths are dead; and the poetic image, which is the myth of the individual, reigns in their stead.”

Art Poetry Individual Myth Poetic Reign

Book:The Poetic Image

Source: The Poetic Image

“Thought must be hidden in the verse like nutritional virtue in a fruit.”

Art Poetry Virtue Fruit Verses

Author:Paul Valery

“Most poets who have little or nothing to say are concerned primarily with the way in which they say it ... if it is true that the style of a poem and the poem itself are one, ... it may be ... that the poets who have little or nothing to say are, or will be, the poets that matter.”

Ifs Way May Littles Art Matter Poetry Style Poet Concerned

Book:Collected Poetry and Prose

Source: Collected Poetry and Prose

“Poetry offers a way of understanding and expressing existence that is fundamentally different from conceptual thought.”

Way Art Different Poetry Understanding Existence Offers

Author:Dana Gioia

“So we start with an oversignifying reader. Those texts that appear to reward this reader for this additional investment - text that we find exceptionally suggestive, apposite, or musical - are usually adjudged to be 'poetic'. ... The work of the poet is to contribute a text that will firstly invite such a reading; and secondly reward such a reading.”

Art Poetry Reading Poet Reader Investment Rewards Musical Poetic Invites

Author:Don Paterson

“The poem is a structure of signifiers which absorbs and reconstitutes the signified.”

Art Poetry Structure

Author:Jonathan Culler

“Poetry is language in orbit.”

Art Poetry Language Poetry Is Orbit

Book:Finders Keepers: Selected Prose 1971 - 2001

Source: Finders Keepers: Selected Prose 1971 - 2001

“When oxygen and sulphur dioxide are mixed in the presence of a filiament of platinum, they form sulphurous acid. This combination takes place only if the platinum is present; nevertheless the newly formed acid contains no trace of platinum, and the platinum itself is apparently unaffected: has remained inert, neutral, and unchanged. The mind of the poet is the shred of platinum.”

Ifs Mind Art Form Poetry Poet Combination Nevertheless Oxygen Acid Platinum

Book:Selected essays

Source: Selected essays

“Poetry is news brought to the mountains by a unicorn and an echo.”

Art Poetry Mountain News Poetry Is Echoes Unicorn

Author:Czeslaw Milosz

“Eloquence is heard; poetry is overheard ... All poetry is of the nature of the soliloquy.”

Art Poetry Heard Poetry Is Eloquence

Book:Autobiography, and Other Writings

Source: Autobiography, and Other Writings

“What characterizes a poem is its necessary dependence on words as much as its struggle to transcend them.”

Art Poetry Struggle Dependence

Author:Octavio Paz

“Poetry is a satifying of the desire for resemblance.”

Art Desire Poetry Poetry Is Resemblance

Author:Wallace Stevens

“Poetry is the break (or rather the meeting at the breaking point) between the visible and the invisible.”

Art Poetry Break Meetings Invisible Visible Poetry Is Point Break

Book:Our Lady of the Flowers

Source: Our Lady of the Flowers

“The poem is not only the point of origin for all the language and narrative arts, the poem returns us to the very social function of art as such.”

Art Poetry Language Social Return Function Narrative Narrative Art

Author:Ron Silliman

“Poetry is a verdict rather than an intention.”

Art Poetry Intention Poetry Is Verdict

Author:Leonard Cohen

“Art's effect is due to the tension resulting from the clash of the collocation of elements of two (or more) systems of interpretation. This conflict has the function of breaking down automatism of perception and occurs simultaneously on the many levels of a work of art ... All levels may carry meaning.”

May Art Two Poetry Levels Effects Conflict Elements Perception Function Dues Tension Interpretation Works Of Art Breaking Down Clash

Author:Yuri Lotman

“Poetic language features an iconic rather than a predominantly conventional relationship of form and content in which all language (and cultural) elements, variant as well as invariant, may be involved in the expression of the content.", "Analysis of the Poetic Text.”

Wells May Art Form Poetry Language Expression Involved Elements Features Analysis Poetic Conventional Iconic

Author:Yuri Lotman

“Certain supplementary restrictions imposed on the text compel us to perceive it as poetry. As soon as one assigns a given text to the category of poetry, the number of meaningful elements in it acquires the capacity to grow and the system of their combinations also becomes more complex.”

Art Poetry Certain Given Grows Numbers Elements Capacity Complexes Meaningful Combination Perceive Acquire Categories Restriction

Author:Yuri Lotman

“The underlying purpose of all art is to create patterns of imagery which somehow convey a sense of life set in a framework of order ... all great art ... harmonises consciousness with the ego-transcending Self.”

Art Self Poetry Purpose Order Consciousness Ego Art Is Patterns Great Art Imagery Framework Transcending

Book:The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories

Source: The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories

“Poetry is that magic which consists in awakening sensations with the help of a combination of sounds ... that sorcery by which ideas are necessarily communicated to us, in a definite way, by words which nevertheless do not express them.”

Way Art Ideas Helping Poetry Sound Magic Awakening Combination Poetry Is Sensations Nevertheless Definite Sorcery

Author:John Banville