Quote

Poetry was invented as an mnemonic device to enable people to remember their prayers.

Poetry is one of the ancient arts, and it began as did all the fine arts, within the original wilderness of the earth.

Part of what we love about poetry is the fact that it seems ancient, that it has an authority of ancient language and ancient form, and that it's timeless, that it reaches back.

I would come to understand there is no poem separable from its source. I began to see that poems are not just an individual florescence. They are also a vast root system growing down into ideas and understandings. Almost unbidden, they tap into the history and evolution of art and language.

Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.

Poetry is a vocal art for me - but not necessarily a performative one. It might be reading to oneself or recalling some lines by memory.

A poem in form still has to have voice, gesture, a sense of discovery, a metaphoric connection, as any poetry does.

Poetry is ordinary language raised to the Nth power. Poetry is boned with ideas, nerved and blooded with emotions, all held together by the delicate, tough skin of words.

Poetry is that art which selects and arranges the symbols of thought in such a manner as to excite the imagination the most powerfully and delightfully.