Poetry

Quotes concerning Poetry

• "There is nothing greater than the human mind, only through it people are able to travel on roads, which would otherwise be closed to them in their narrow realities."
  • Uwe H. Friese

• "Poetry is the one place where people can speak their original human mind. It is the outlet for people to say in public what is known in private."
  • Allen Ginsberg

• "As a poet I hold the most archaic values on earth . . . the fertility of the soil, the magic of animals, the power-vision in solitude, the terrifying initiation and rebirth, the love and ecstasy of the dance, the common work of the tribe. I try to hold both history and the wilderness in mind, that my poems may approach the true measure of things and stand against the unbalance and ignorance of our times."
  • Gary Snyder

• "I think one of poetry’s functions is not to give us what we want... [T]he poet isn’t always of use to the tribe. The tribe thrives on the consensual. The tribe is pulling together to face the intruder who threatens it. Meanwhile, the poet is sitting by himself in the graveyard talking to a skull."
  • Heather McHugh

• "Writing poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric."
  • Theodor Adorno.