Mary Oliver Quotes

I could no more define poetry than a terrier can define a rat.

People want poetry. They need poetry. They get it. They don't want fancy work.

You don't make a poem with ideas, but with words.

It's not easy to define poetry.

I like to think that the best poetry is or involves a contest between ordinary conversation and ritual.

For poets today or in any age, the choice is not between freedom on the one hand and abstruse French forms on the other. The choice is between the nullity and vanity of our first efforts, and the developing of a sense of idiom, form, structure, metre, rhythm, line - all the fundamental characteristics of this verbal art.

I didn't read poetry seriously until college, when I really began to devour it in a very intense way. I also discovered that a poet is a maker. Before that, I thought a poet was someone who wrote about his own experiences.

I'm not an academic, but I've always loved poetry since I've been small.

I'd like to go back to poetry again. I really, really revere good poetry. It's been my private discipline.

It should here be added that poetry habitually takes the form of verse.

A poem is a naked person... Some people say that I am a poet.

Poetry, almost by definition, calls attention to its language and form.

A definition of poetry can only determine what poetry should be and not what poetry actually was and is; otherwise the most concise formula would be: Poetry is that which at some time and some place was thus named.

I think the best American poetry is the poetry that utilizes the resources of poetry rather than exploits the defects or triumphs of the poet's personality.

Poetry: the best words in the best order.

But poetry is my life. Poetry is what matters to me.

Poetry is, first and last, language - the rest is filler.

I believe poetry has very little to do with memory.

Granted, I'm someone who loves words. I've always loved poetry - so it's suited to me.

In poetry, you must love the words, the ideas and the images and rhythms with all your capacity to love anything at all.

All poetry has to do is to make a strong communication. All the poet has to do is listen. The poet is not an important fellow. There will also be another poet.

I'm a poet, and I spent my life in poetry.

The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes.

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

Poetry is the exquisite expression of exquisite expressions.