51+ Quotes About Poetry And The Power Of Expression

Poetry is a form of expression that is often distinctly known because of its use of style and rhythm.

It can be said that literature as a tradition started with oral poetry. Poetry is one of the best devices to convey one's feelings to other people.

Poetry has the power of expression so poets have always been an important part of society. Poems have long-held the power to evoke emotions as well as revolutions.

The beauty of poetry lies in its simplicity as well as its availability to everyone. Anyone can write beautiful poetry by using simple words and expressions which can be spontaneous or planned.

Just like there is no strict definition of poetry, even poetry quotes can't be defined. Let us have a look at some of the quotes related to poetry given by poets and other renowned people.

Like our recommendations for powerful quotes about poetry? Do check out poetry quotes and Robert Browning quotes for delving deep into the realms of rhythm.

‍

Famous Quotes About Poetry

Here are some of the poetry quotes that you should definitely know as they have been expressed by eminent people from the world of poems and language. These quotes also tell you about the importance of poems.

1. "I would define the poetry of words as the rhythmical creation of beauty."

‒ Edgar Allen Poe.

2. "If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry."

‒ Emily Dickinson.

3. "Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility."

‒ William Wordsworth, 'Lyrical Ballads'.

4. "It is a test [that] genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood."

‒ T. S. Eliot.

5. "Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away."

‒ Carl Sandburg.

6. "A good poem is a contribution to reality. The world is never the same once a good poem has been added to it."

‒ Dylan Thomas.

7. "I'm a great believer in poetry out of the classroom, in public places, on subways, trains, on cocktail napkins. I'd rather have my poems on the subway than around the seminar table at an MFA program."

‒ Billy Collins.

8. "Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman."

‒ Virginia Woolf.

9. "With me poetry has been not a purpose, but a passion…"

‒ Edgar Allen Poe.

10. "Poetry is an orphan of silence. The words never quite equal the experience behind them."

‒ Charles Simic.

11. "Poetry comes from the highest happiness or the deepest sorrow."

‒ A. P. J. Abdul Kalam.

12. "The poet exposes himself to the risk. All that has been said about poetry, all that he has learned about poetry, is only a partial assurance."

‒ A. R. Ammons, 'Set In Motion.

13. "Only the very weak-minded refuse to be influenced by literature and poetry."

‒ Cassandra Clare.

14. "The great instrument of moral good is the imagination; and poetry administers to the effect by acting on the cause."

‒ Percy Bysshe Shelley.

15. "Too many people in the modern world view poetry as a luxury, not a necessity like petrol. But to me it's the oil of life."

‒ John Betjeman.

Quotes About Writing Poetry

When you start to write a poem, the words may not come to you, and the act of writing may feel daunting. So, here are some quotes on writing poetry that will cheer you up.

16. "Poetry is what gets lost in translation."

‒ Robert Frost.

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

‒ Don Marquis.

18. "Writing poetry is the hard manual labor of the imagination."

‒ Ishmael Reed.

19. "Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance."

‒ Carl Sandburg.

20. "Was not writing poetry a secret transaction, a voice answering a voice?"

‒ Virginia Woolf.

21. "The only true writing that came through during the war was in poetry."

‒ Ernest Hemingway, 'Men At War'.

22. "Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and thought has found words."

‒ Robert Frost.

23. "Poetry, I feel, is a tyrannical discipline."

‒ Sylvia Plath.

24. "The aim of art is almost divine: to bring to life again if it is writing history, to create if it is writing poetry."

‒ Victor Hugo.

25. "A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness."

‒ Robert Frost.

Quotes About Words And Language

Poetry would go obsolete without the use of words and language. So, here are some of the quotes on the use of language and words that have been made.

26. "When written in Chinese, the word crisis is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity."

‒ John F. Kennedy.

27. "The most important things are the hardest to say, because words diminish them."

‒ Stephen King, 'Different Seasons'.

28. "The oldest, shortest words—'yes' and 'no'— are those which require the most thought."

‒ Pythagoras.

29. "Until the day when God shall deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is summed up in these two words: wait and hope."

‒ Alexandre Dumas.

30. "Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind."

‒ Rudyard Kipling.

31. "French is the language that turns dirt into romance."

‒ Stephen King.

32. "After all, when you come right down to it, how many people speak the same language even when they speak the same language?"

‒ Russell Hoban, 'The Lion Of Boaz-Jachin And Jachin-Boaz'.

33. "I hold that gentleman to be the best dressed whose dress no one observes. I am not sure but that the same may be said of an author's written language."

‒ Anthony Trollope.

34. "History does not merely touch on language, but takes place in it."

- Theodor W. Adorno.

35. "The chief difference between words and deeds is that words are always intended for men for their approbation, but deeds can be done only for God."

‒ Leo Tolstoy.

Quotes About The Power Of Expression

Poets have long held poetry as the most important form to express their feelings. Be it for love or war, poets have used their poems and lyrics to express what they felt about the situation. In this section, you will learn through the quotes about what is love poetry.

36. "A marvellous power of expression over language often distinguishes genius."

‒ George Edward Woodberry.

37. "Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It's that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that's what the poet does."

‒ Allen Ginsberg.

38. "What's that about? Love must be more about power than we think, if even in its most intimate moment of expression we think about not being the one who risks the most."

‒ Deb Caletti.

39. "The world is full of poetry."

‒ James Gates Percival.

40. "Don't write love poems when you're in love. Write them when you're not in love."

‒ Richard Hugo.

41. "There are faces so fluid with expression, so flushed and rippled by the play of thought, that we can hardly find what the mere features really are."

‒ Ralph Waldo Emerson.

42. "Two factors primarily determine its works: one is the idea in the mind of the artist, the other is his power of expression; and both these factors are extremely variable."

‒ George Edward Woodberry.

43. "If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry."

‒ Emily Dickinson.

44. "I am the poor man's poet; because I am poor myself, and I have known what it is to be in love. Not being able to pay them in presents, I pay my mistresses in poetry."

‒ Ovid.

Powerful Poems About Poetry From Poets

Have you ever thought about writing poems about poetry? Well, poets have always been passionate about their art. Here are some quotes on poems about poetry from some renowned poets.

45. "I want them to waterski

across the surface of a poem

waving at the author's name on the shore."

‒ Billy Collins, 'Introduction To Poetry'.

46. "And it was at that age … Poetry arrived

in search of me."

‒ Pablo Neruda.

47. "Dis poetry is like a riddim dat drops

De tongue fires a riddim dat shoots like shots..."

‒ Benjamin Zephaniah.

48. "it takes a lot of desperation dissatisfaction and disillusion to write a few good poems."

‒ Charles Buckowski.

49. "Oh, speak no ill of poetry,

For 'tis a holy thing."

‒ Lydia Huntley Sigourney.

50. "For I must read a lady poesy

The while we glide by many a leafy bay…"

‒ William Carlos Williams.

51. "Poetry -

but what is poetry."

‒ Wislawa Szymborska, ‘Some Like Poetry’.

52. "Tonight I can write the saddest lines

I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too."

‒ Pablo Neruda, 'Twenty Love Poems And A Song of Despair'.

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly quotes for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for quotes about poetry then why not take a look at genius quotes and inspiring quotes for teens.