I think there is no such thing as a long poem. If it is long it isn’t a poem; it is something else. A book like John Brown’s Body, for instance, is not a poem – it is a series of poems tied together with cord. Poetry is intensity, and nothing is intense for long.
Poetry Quotes
It is difficult to get the news from poems, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.
Perhaps there are no warmer lovers of the muse than those who are only permitted occasionally to gain her favors. The shrine is more reverently approached by the pilgrim from afar than the familiar worshiper and is often most beloved by one whose daily vocation is amid the bustle of the world.
My quarrel with poets… is not that they are unclear, but that they are too diligent. Diligence in a poet is the same as dishonesty in a bookkeeper. There are rafts of bards who are writing too much, too diligently, and too slyly.
It is the poet who lives locally, and whose senses are applied no way else than locally to particulars, which are the agent and the maker of all culture. It is the poet’s job and the poet lives on the job, on the location.
The lines of poetry, the period of prose, and even the texts of Scripture most frequently recollected and quoted, are those which are felt to be preeminently musical.
Poetry is an art, and chief of the fine art; the easiest to dabble in, the hardest in which to reach true excellence.
None merit the name of creator save God and the poet.
Poetry is an orphan of silence. The words never quite equal the experience behind them.
Poetry is adjectives expressed in nouns.
