259 Poems Quotes for You to Enjoy

It was in a stonecutter's house where I went to have a headstone made for Raftery's grave that I found a manuscript book of his poems, written out in the clear beautiful Irish characters. Lady Gregory

Beautiful Book Made Out Characters Poems Written Clear House His Irish Where Manuscript Found Grave

I wrote two poems about the '81 uprisings: 'Di Great Insohreckshan' and 'Mekin Histri.' I wrote those two poems from the perspective of those who had taken part in the Brixton riots. The tone of the poem is celebratory because I wanted to capture the mood of exhilaration felt by black people at the time. Linton Kwesi Johnson

What I wanted to do was use literature and different kinds of stories and poems as a springboard, tapping into the creativity of our teens - I wanted teenagers to come up with their own creative responses to literature - using books themselves as a starting point. Malorie Blackman

Creative Creativity Own Different Kinds Teenagers Teens Our Books Responses Kinds Poems Point Come Springboard Tapping Up Different Wanted Stories Literature Themselves Use Using Starting Starting Point

I don't think of poetry as a 'rational' activity but as an aural one. My poems usually begin with words or phrases which appeal more because of their sound than their meaning, and the movement and phrasing of a poem are very important to me. Margaret Atwood

Like many modern poets, I tend to conceal rhymes by placing them in the middle of lines, and to avoid immediate alliteration and assonance in favor of echoes placed later in the poems. Margaret Atwood

Later Immediate Favor Echoes Poems Poets Tend Conceal Like Lines Modern Middle Rhymes Placed Placing Them Avoid Many

Of the individual poems, some are more lyric and some are more descriptive or narrative. Each poem is fixed in a moment. All those moments written or read together take on the movement and architecture of a narrative. Marilyn Hacker

Together Architecture Lyric Those Some Poem Poems More Individual Take Written Read Narrative Fixed Movement Moment Moments Each Descriptive

'Love, Death and the Changing of the Seasons' is a kind of novel in verse about the arc of an urban lesbian love affair - and I suppose there is a certain amount of voyeurism in the consumption of fiction! The 'Sancerre' poems here are more contemplative and about the relationship of the individual to local and wider histories. Marilyn Hacker

Love Death Relationship Lesbian Changing Local Kind Arc About Poems More Individual Consumption Suppose Contemplative Affair Verse Histories Love Affair Fiction Urban Certain Novel Seasons Amount Here Wider

I tend to like poems that engage me - that is to say, which do not bore me. Mark Strand

Me Say Bore Poems Tend Like Which Engage

And Robert Lowell, of course - in his poems, we're not located in his actual life. We're located more in the externals, in the journalistic facts of his life. Mark Strand

Life Located Poems More Facts Journalistic Robert Course His Actual

As a child, what captivated me was reading the poems myself and realizing that there was a world without material substance which was nevertheless as alive as any other. Mary Oliver

Myself Me World Reading Other Alive Poems Nevertheless Without Material Child Any Substance Which Realizing Captivated

I turn to poems to find spaces that might enlarge, rather than distill, experience. Mary Szybist

Experience Find Poems Rather Than Spaces Might Turn

I have a little tiny Emily Dickinson so big that I carry in my pocket everywhere. And you just read three poems of Emily. She is so brave. She is so strong. She is such a sexy, passionate, little woman. I feel better. Maurice Sendak

I've reached a point in life where it would be easy to let down my guard and write simple imagistic poems. But I don't want to write poems that aren't necessary. I want to write poems that matter, that have an interesting point of view. Maxine Kumin

Life Simple Matter Down Guard Would Would-Be Easy Poems Point Point Of View Write Reached Where Want Interesting View Let Down Necessary

I have a vast 'bone pile' of stillborn or abandoned poems along with jottings and wisps from the great beyond that I tend to scan. Sometimes that leads somewhere, and sometimes the Muse is just on sabbatical. Maxine Kumin

Great Sometimes Somewhere Bone Abandoned Scan Poems Sabbatical Tend Vast Leads Along Beyond Pile Just Muse

So many poems you go into and come up empty. Maxine Kumin

You Poems Come Empty Go Up Many

The idea of a pseudonym had been flitting around my brain for a long time, along with its cognate, disappearance. In the 1980s, I published some poems under a pen name in a literary magazine to see what it would feel like. It was fun. It was even a little thrilling. Michael Redhill

Time Long Long Time Pen Would See Magazine Some Poems Thrilling Had Disappearance Idea Feel Name Along Like Around Been Brain Pseudonym Literary Little Fun Even Flitting Published

I've had journals ever since I was really little. Sometimes I write poems and stuff, but for the most part I write down what happens to me during the day that I don't want to forget. So I have books filled with little things like that. Miranda Cosgrove

Our poems will have failed if our readers are not brought by them beyond the poems. Muriel Rukeyser

Will Our Brought Poems Failed Beyond Readers Them

During the Gulf War, I remember two little third grade girls saying to me - after I read them some poems by writers in Iraq - 'You know, we never thought about there being children in Iraq before.' And I thought, 'Well those poems did their job, because now they'll think about everything a little bit differently.' Naomi Shihab Nye

War Saying Me You Remember Job Thought Girl Before Think Everything Bit Those Gulf Gulf War Some About Poems Writers Never Know Well Read Because Iraq Did Grade Being Children After Little Little Bit Them Now Differently Two Third

The first thing I tried to do in the months after losing my mother was to write a poem. I found myself turning to poetry in the way so many people do - to make sense of losses. And I wrote pretty bad poems about it. But it did feel that the poem was the only place that could hold this grief. Natasha Trethewey

Myself Grief People Mother Losing First Sense Way Months Bad Tried Pretty About Poem Poems Only Poetry Could Write Feel Wrote Make First Thing Losses Did So Many People The First Thing Hold After Place Turning Many Found Thing

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