The poet's expression of joy conceals his despair at not having found the reality of joy.

The poet's expression of joy conceals his despair at not having found the reality of joy.

I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you. I read more

I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you. I love you not only for what you have made of yourself, but for what you are making of me. I love you for the part of me that you bring out.

A poet is a man who manages, in a lifetime of standing out in thunderstorms, to be struck by lightning read more

A poet is a man who manages, in a lifetime of standing out in thunderstorms, to be struck by lightning five or six times.

A poet is someone who is astonished by everything.

A poet is someone who is astonished by everything.

Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.

Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.

Why then we should drop into poetry.

Why then we should drop into poetry.

I've written some poetry I don't understand myself.

I've written some poetry I don't understand myself.

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).

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.".