I do love quotes! Here are some from poets about poetry, along with a few thoughts on what the quote means to me.

To be a poet is a condition, not a profession. — Robert Graves

Maybe poetry is like the common cold. Every so often we ‘catch’ it and write a poem. Poetry is also a way of seeing the world. We may not all be poets, but anyone can cultivate appreciating poetry.

You will find poetry nowhere unless you bring some of it with you. —Joseph Joubert

Poetry begets poetry. The more you love it the more there will be to love. The most beautiful, haunting, sad or joyful emotions cannot be stirred unless you have something to stir up in your heart.

Poetry might be defined as the clear expression of mixed feelings. —W. H. Auden

This is lovely! So often poems arrise out of a fog. And reading poetry can clarify my own mixed feelings.

Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason. —Novalis

When life looks too hard, when you believe there is nothing beautiful on the horizon, that is the time to visit your poetry bookshelf. It will awaken your senses to the beauty that is left, and heal the wounds that ‘real life’ inflicts. Sometimes the hard facts seem too terrible to cope with, yet a difficult day turned into a poem transforms into a thing of beauty.

For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes to let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry. —Mary Oliver

Some people make the claim that poetry saved their life. It has certainly saved the day for me, and that’s probably the same thing.

A poet can survive everything but a misprint. —Oscar Wilde

My mom has told me about a poem of hers in print that was missing an apostrophe. I agreed, it was a tragedy!

A poem is… a momentary stay against confusion. —Robert Frost

This might be another way to say a ‘clear expression of mixed feelings.’ I like the word stay in there. A stay is a support, prop or brace. Keep the poetry and you will be supported. It can also mean postponement, reprieve or suspension. Poetry can push off the confusion. Another meaning of stay is to check, restrain, or discontinue. Poetry can keep the confusion in it’s place and not let it take over.

(Poetry) begins in delight and ends in wisdom. —Robert Frost

When Robert Frost wrote this, he was describing his process of writing a poem in an essay titled “The Figure a Poem Makes.” Something delighted him and that spark begins a poem. He does not know where it will lead, but often leads to ‘the surprise of remembering something I didn’t know I knew’ and goes on to a meaning that ‘unfolded by surprise as it went.’

The Whole Duty of a Poem
A poem should be, as our best ever are
Golden of heart like a rose or a star.

A poem should be, like the brook that you hear
Sing down the mountainside, lovely and clear.

Yet in its music a poem should hold
That which is felt but may never be told.
--Arthur Guiterman

I hope a poem saves you today! Liz