The first function of poetry is to tell the truth, to learn how to do that, to find out what you really feel and what you really think. – June Jordan
Composers need words, but they do not necessarily need poetry. The Russian composer, Aleksandr Mossolov, who chose texts from newspaper small ads, had a good point to make. With revolutionary music, any text can be set to work. – James Fenton
My art and poetry is very political now. Because you’ve got to find that truth within you and express yourself. Somewhere out there, I know, there will be people who will listen. – Jack Bowman
I think the first time I really heard poetry was in the schoolyard. Just the little limericks that kids say when they’re jumping rope and playing games. I think that’s the first time I heard rhyming words – I don’t know if I’d call that the definitive poetry, but that’s when I heard rhyming words said and not necessarily sung. – Jill Scott
Otherwise I don’t read much adult poetry at all, because I’m not smart enough and mostly I don’t get it. – Jack Prelutsky
It’s something we, guys, have all done. Made tapes for girls, trying to impress them, to meet them on a shared plane of aesthetics. Read them someone else’s poetry because they do poetry better than you could do it, because you’re too awkward to do it. – John Cusack
If what distinguishes us from other species is speech, then poetry, which is the supreme linguistic operation, is our anthropological – indeed, genetic – goal. – Joseph Brodsky
I’ve been writing since I was sixteen. At first, I wrote mostly short stories and poetry. The first thing I ever had published was a poem about a football game. It was printed in my local newspaper. – Jerry Spinelli
The more one reads poetry, the less tolerant one becomes of any sort of verbosity, be that in political or philosophical discourse, be that in history, social studies or the art of fiction. – Joseph Brodsky
But at the beginning it was clear to me that concrete poetry was peculiarly suited for using in public settings. This was my idea, but of course I never really much got the chance to do it. – Ian Hamilton Finlay
Poetry, at its best, is the language your soul would speak if you could teach your soul to speak. – Jim Harrison
When I was 18, I took a trip to Thailand with a friend. We stayed for a month. Bangkok was very raw for a teenager: there were no cellphones, no Internet, and the only music I had with me was this cassette by Liz Phair. I was writing a lot of poetry, and she embodied a talky style of songwriting that I found very accessible. – Jenny Lewis
Shakespeare was a man who wrote poetry. I’m a man who writes poetry. Why not compare yourself to the best? – Jay-Z
I think when kids just see well-crafted poetry, it’s just obtuse to them. It’s hard to relate to. – Jewel
Like most lit nerds, I’m a voracious reader. I never got enough poetry under my belt growing up but I do read it – some of my favorites, Gina Franco and Angela Shaw and Cornelius Eady and Kevin Young, remind me daily that unless the words sing and dance, what’s the use of putting them down on paper. – Junot Diaz
I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business. – Henry David Thoreau
The charge frequently leveled against poetry – that it is difficult, obscure, hermetic and whatnot – indicates not the state of poetry but, frankly, the rung of the evolutionary ladder on which society is stuck. – Joseph Brodsky
As for how criticism of Keats’ poetry relates to criticism of my own work, I’ll leave that for others to decide. – Jane Campion
When I arrived at Columbia, I gave up acting and became interested in all things French. French poetry, French history, French literature. – Joseph Gordon-Levitt
In medicine as well as in romantic poetry, it is the heart that is the center and controlling mechanics of life. If the heart stops, life stops. The loss of sight doesn’t not mean death. Yet for ages, the eyes was believed to contain a human being’s vital essence – a not wholly irrational belief. – Henry Grunwald
And, I mean, I think poetry does need to be met to some extent, especially, I guess, 19th century poetry, and for me, it’s just been so worth the effort. It’s like I’m planting a garden in my head. – Jane Campion
My favorite subject probably was math. I love math. Figures just intrigue me. I was really good at math. English probably was my worst subject. But I used to write a lot of poetry. I used to write poetry all the time. – Herschel Walker
Poetry is not mainstream, but then neither is serious fiction, really. But I don’t think there’s a lot to worry about in this particular ‘problem’. Why does art have to be mainstream to be significant? – Jonathan Galassi
