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" Poetry is a vocation. It is not a career but a calling. "

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" Shakespeare was a man who wrote poetry. I'm a man who writes poetry. Why not compare yourself to the best? "

" I certainly can't speak for all cultures or all societies, but it's clear that in America, poetry serves a very marginal purpose. It's not part of the cultural mainstream. "

" In poetry you can express almost inexpressible feelings. You can express the pain of loss, you can express love. People always turn to poetry when someone they love dies, when they fall in love. "

" Reading a piece of poetry with no beat in front of 20 people is way more challenging than rocking for 10,000 people. "

" Poetry is a sword of lightning, ever unsheathed, which consumes the scabbard that would contain it. "

Percy Bysshe Shelley

" My poetry is me trying to reconcile my own life and opportunities I've had with opportunities my students aren't given and how profoundly unfair that is. "

" Poetry is life distilled. "

Gwendolyn Brooks

" I think one of the things that people tend to forget is that poets do write out of life. It isn't some set piece that then gets put up on the shelf, but that the impetus, the real instigation for poetry is everything that's happening around us. "

" The first function of poetry is to tell the truth, to learn how to do that, to find out what you really feel and what you really think. "

" There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money, either. "

" Deals are my art form. Other people paint beautifully on canvas or write wonderful poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals. That's how I get my kicks. "

" And at least in poetry you should feel free to lie. That is, not to lie, but to imagine what you want, to follow the direction of the poem. "

" Nobody, I think, ought to read poetry, or look at pictures or statues, who cannot find a great deal more in them than the poet or artist has actually expressed. Their highest merit is suggestiveness. "

Nathaniel Hawthorne

" Poetry is like a bird, it ignores all frontiers. "

Yevgeny Yevtushenko

" The job of the poet is to render the world - to see it and report it without loss, without perversion. No poet ever talks about feelings. Only sentimental people do. "

" I still read Donne, particularly his love poems. "

Carol Ann Duffy

" I like cups of tea and reading books and poetry and old people things. "

" Poetry is what we turn to in the most emotional moments of our life - when a beloved friend dies, when a baby is born or when we fall in love. "

" There is no one more deserving of a place in Poets' Corner. Ted Hughes introduced a new kind of landscape into English poetry. The most compelling aspect of his work was his intimacy with nature. "

" Well you can't teach the poetry, but you can teach the craft. "

" I'm moved by people who see the world differently than others. People who see the world with a longing for its poetry often can be broken people. "

" Statues are one of the ways I try to test the traditions of European culture against the most modern destructive forces. I often make a point of seeking them out and have used them as mouthpieces in my film poetry, as with Heinrich Heine in 'The Gaze of the Gorgon.' "

" I liked to write from the time I was about 12 or 13. I loved to read. And since I only spoke to my brother, I would write down my thoughts. And I think I wrote some of the worst poetry west of the Rockies. But by the time I was in my 20s, I found myself writing little essays and more poetry - writing at writing. "

" I love reading all kinds of books. I usually have about ten books going at any one time - books about the past, the present, novels, non-fiction, poetry, mythology, religion, etc. Reading is my favorite thing to do. "

Mary Pope Osborne

" For an American, there's no automatic place where people love the art of poetry. There's not a social class that considers poetry its property the way in some countries there's a snob value to the art. "

" One night, I lay awake for hours, just terrified. When the dawn finally came up - the comfortable blue sky, the familiar world returning - I could think of no other way to express my relief than through poetry. I made a decision there and then that it was what I wanted to do. Every time I pulled a wishbone, it was what I asked for. "

" Metaphorical tone deafness is when people are unable to discern what is of value in something. I think I'm tone deaf to poetry, for instance. Despite having studied it into a second year of university, most of it just leaves me cold. "

" Poetry is a call to action, and it also is action. "

Juan Felipe Herrera

" The sense of flowing, which is so crucial to song, is also crucial to poetry. "

" Without poetry, stories would be told in sepia. "