Poet Quotes

I've never read a political poem that's accomplished anything. Poetry makes things happen, but rarely what the poet wants.
Howard Nemerov

Poetry, Political, Happen

What a writer can do, what a fiction writer or a poet or an essay writer can do is re-engage people with their own humanity.
Barbara Kingsolver

Humanity, Writer, Fiction

For the poet the credo or doctrine is not the point of arrival but is, on the contrary, the point of departure for the metaphysical journey.
Joseph Brodsky

Point, Journey, Contrary

My dad wanted to name me after Rainier Maria Rilke, the poet.
Rainn Wilson

Dad, After, Wanted

The poet speaks to all men of that other life of theirs that they have smothered and forgotten.
Edith Sitwell

Life, Men, Forgotten

I was appointed Poet Laureate. It came totally out of the blue because most Poet Laureates had been considerably older than I. It was not something that I even had begun to dream about!
Rita Dove

Dream, Older, Blue

People write me from all over the country, asking me, and sometimes even telling me, what they think a poet laureate should do. I found that immensely valuable.
Rita Dove

Country, Sometimes, Write

It's the combination of the intimate and the public that I find so exciting about being poet laureate.
Rita Dove

Find, Public, Exciting

There are distinct duties of a poet laureate. I plan a reading series at the Library of Congress and advise the librarian. The rest is how I want to promote poetry.
Rita Dove

Poetry, Plan, Reading

Being Poet Laureate made me realize I was capable of a larger voice. There is a more public utterance I can make as a poet.
Rita Dove

Made, Public, Realize

No poet will ever take the written word as a substitute for the spoken word; he knows that it is on the spoken word, and the spoken word only, that his art is founded.
Lascelles Abercrombie

Art, Word, Knows

The epic poet collaborates with the spirit of his time in the composition of his work. That is, if he is successful; the time may refuse to work with him, but he may not refuse to work with his time.
Lascelles Abercrombie

Work, Time, Successful

The epic poet has behind him a tradition of matter and a tradition of style; and that is what every other poet has behind him too; only, for the epic poet, tradition is rather narrower, rather more strictly compelling.
Lascelles Abercrombie

Him, Matter, Rather

Everything on this record is what I really wanted to say, and I'm back to being the poet I always thought I was.
Stevie Nicks

Everything, Thought, Wanted

As regards literary culture, it fascinates me that it has been so resilient to the Union. For example, when T.S. Eliot wanted to become poet in these lands, it wasn't as an English poet, it was an Anglian poet he wanted to be.
Ian Mcewan

Become, Wanted, Union

I am a guest of the French language. My poems in French are born of my interaction with the French language, which is not the same as that of a French poet.
Tahar Ben Jelloun

Same, Language, Born

No bad man can be a good poet.
Boris Pasternak

I started earning a living as a poet rather early on.
Wislawa Szymborska

Living, Rather, Started

I'm fighting against the bad poet who is prone to using too many words.
Wislawa Szymborska

Bad, Words, Fighting

In the hands of a great poet, words have ways of affecting us in ways we don't understand.
Kenneth Branagh

Great, Words, Understand

When I was about 14, in about 1984, I decided to become a great poet. Faber & Faber was going to publish me, and when Ted Hughes read my first anthology he would invite me to Yorkshire for meat pies and mentorship.
David Mitchell

Great, Become, Read

I consider myself kind of a reporter - one who uses words that are more like music and that have a choreography. I never think of myself as a poet; I just get up and write.
Mary Oliver

Music, Words, Write

For a long time I thought I was a poet, but that's a high title to claim.
Philip Pullman

Time, Long, Thought

The poet produces the beautiful by fixing his attention on something real.
Simone Veil

Beautiful, Real, Attention

A man may be variously accomplished, and yet be a feeble poet.
George Henry Lewes

May, Feeble, Variously

Philip Larkin has a tough honesty and sense of humor that I find irresistible, as a contemporary poet.
Robert Morgan

Humor, Honesty, Find

The Black Mountain poet I like most is the early Creeley. Those early poems seem very lyrical and very traditional, with a lot of voice and character.
Robert Morgan

Character, Black, Voice

But one does not make living writing poetry unless you're a professor, and one frankly doesn't get a lot of girls as a poet.
Jeffery Deaver

Poetry, Writing, Living

One travels so as to learn once more how to marvel at life in the way a child does. And blessed be the poet, the artist who knows how to keep alive his sense of wonder.
Ella Maillart

Life, Blessed, Sense

I'm not a journalist; I'm a poet.
Werner Herzog

Share with your Friends

Everyone likes a good quote - don't forget to share.

Related Definition

Poet Definition

Robert Louis Stevenson

Popular Topics

Friendship Quotes

Motivational Quotes

Inspirational Quotes

Get Social with BrainyQuote

BrainyQuote Desktop

BrainyQuote Mobile

Site

Quote of the Day

Social

BQ on Pinterest

Syndication

Funny Quote Feed

Love Quote Feed

Nature Quote Feed

About Us