Poetry by Poets

Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash. — Leonard Cohen

Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.  — Samuel Johnson

Poetry is what gets lost in translation. — Robert Frost

“Therefore” is a word the poet must not know. — Andre Gide

An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way. — Charles Bukowski

As soon as war is declared it will be impossible to hold the poets back. Rhyme is still the most effective drum. — Jean Giraudoux

Constantly risking absurdity and death whenever he performs above the heads of his audience, the poet, like an acrobat, climbs on rhyme to a high wire of his own making. — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Each memorable verse of a true poet has two or three times the written content. — Alfred de Musset

Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood. — T. S. Eliot

Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. — Percy Bysshe Shelley

Political subject matter is looked upon either as an intruder into the realm of poetry, or as a matter that requires special discussion every time it occurs, and can’t just be taken for granted like any other subject. — Denise Levertov

A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language. –  W. H. Auden

A poet looks at the world the way a man looks at a woman. — Wallace Stevens

A poet’s autobiography is his poetry. Anything else is just a footnote. — Yevgeny Yevtushenko