Poetry teaches us music, metaphor, condensation
and specificity.

Poetry teaches us music, metaphor, condensation
and specificity.

It is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.

It is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.

A poet is an unhappy being whose heart is torn by secret sufferings, but whose lips are so strangely formed read more

A poet is an unhappy being whose heart is torn by secret sufferings, but whose lips are so strangely formed that when the sighs and the cries escape them, they sound like beautiful music... and then people crowd about the poet and say to him: "Sing for us soon again;" that is as much as to say, "May new sufferings torment your soul.".

A poem conveys not a message so much as the provenance of a message, an advent of sense.

A poem conveys not a message so much as the provenance of a message, an advent of sense.

'Twas he that ranged the words at random flung,
Pierced the fair pearls and them together strung.

'Twas he that ranged the words at random flung,
Pierced the fair pearls and them together strung.

Poetry is itself a thing of God;
He made his prophets poets;and the more
We feel of read more

Poetry is itself a thing of God;
He made his prophets poets;and the more
We feel of poesie do we become
Like God in love and power,--under-makers.

Writing a poem is discovering

Writing a poem is discovering

You speak
As one who fed on poetry.

You speak
As one who fed on poetry.

Poetry is the work of poets, not of peoples or communities; artistic creation can never be anything but the production read more

Poetry is the work of poets, not of peoples or communities; artistic creation can never be anything but the production of an individual mind.