In poetry, you must love the words, the ideas and the images and rhythms with all your capacity to love read more

In poetry, you must love the words, the ideas and the images and rhythms with all your capacity to love anything at all.

Feel you the barren flattery of a rhyme?
Can poets soothe you, when you pine for bread,
read more

Feel you the barren flattery of a rhyme?
Can poets soothe you, when you pine for bread,
By winding myrtle round your ruin'd shed?

Prose--words in their best order;--poetry--the best words in
their best order.

Prose--words in their best order;--poetry--the best words in
their best order.

Poetry is the music of the soul, and, above all, of great and feeling souls.

Poetry is the music of the soul, and, above all, of great and feeling souls.

The poet... may be used as a barometer, but let us not forget that he is also part of the read more

The poet... may be used as a barometer, but let us not forget that he is also part of the weather.

Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.

Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.

CONSIDERING THE VOID
When I behold the charm
of evening skies, their lulling endurance;
the patterns of stars with read more

CONSIDERING THE VOID
When I behold the charm
of evening skies, their lulling endurance;
the patterns of stars with names
of bears and dogs, a swan, a virgin;
other planets that the Voyager showed
were like and so unlike our own,
with all their diverse moons,
bright discs, weird rings, and cratered faces;
comets with their streaming tails
bent by pressure from our sun;
the skyscape of our Milky Way
holding in its shimmering disc
an infinity of suns
(or say a thousand billion);
knowing there are holes of darkness
gulping mass and even light,
knowing that this galaxy of ours
is one of multitudes
in what we call the heavens,
it troubles me. It troubles me.
-President Jimmy Carter- (he has written a volume of poetry as well as a novel, The Hornet's Nest,
about the Revolutionary War).

When the brain gets as dry as an empty nut,
When the reason stands on its squarest toes,
read more

When the brain gets as dry as an empty nut,
When the reason stands on its squarest toes,
When the mind (like a beard) has a "formal cut,"--
There is a place and enough for the pains of prose;
But whenever the May-blood stires and glows,
And the young year draws to the "golden prime,"
And Sir Romeo sticks in his ear a rose,--
Then hey! for the ripple of laughing rhyme!

A poet dares be just so clear and no clearer... He unzips the veil from beauty, but does not remove read more

A poet dares be just so clear and no clearer... He unzips the veil from beauty, but does not remove it. A poet utterly clear is a trifle glaring.