Quotes About Expression

I died in 1960 from a prison sentence and poetry brought me back to life.

Poets are shameless with their experiences: they exploit them.

Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words.

It is the job of poetry to clean up our word-clogged reality by creating silences around things.

Bad poetry is caused by people who sit down and think, Now I am going to write a Poem.

A poet is someone who stands outside in the rain hoping to be struck by lightning.

Conscious writing can be the death of poetry.

Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.

That is what poetry can do. It speaks to us of what does not exist, which is not only better than what exists, but even more like the truth.

If rulers refuse to consider poems as crimes, then someone must commit crimes that serve the function of poetry, or texts that possess the resonance of terrorism.

We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race.

It is never what a poem says that matters, but what it is.

The unconscious mind writes poetry if it's left alone.

To elevate the soul, poetry is necessary.

A poet must discover that it's his own story that is true, even if the truth is small indeed.

Poetry: the best words in the best order.

A poem is really a kind of machine for producing the poetic state by means of words.

Only in Russia poetry is respected - it gets people killed.

Sometimes poetry, it is incomprehensible. But we need incomprehensible stuff! It is very healthy to talk about incomprehensible things! It is very healthy! We need it!

Painting is silent poetry.

Everything since Homer has improved, except poetry.

Everywhere I go I find that a poet has been there before me.

A poet's autobiography is his poetry. Anything else can only be a footnote.

I think that in the process of writing, all kinds of unexpected things happen that shift the poet away from his plan and that these accidents are really what we mean when we talk about poetry.