Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Quotes

The most exciting thing is to read a poem out loud for the first time.

I would define, in brief, the poetry of words as the rhythmical creation of Beauty.

Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.

I've stopped acting, but I don't think I've finished using my voice. I could, and probably will, record the whole of Shakespeare's sonnets. They live at the side of my bed and are my constant companions.

If you go into a bar in most places in America and even say the word poetry, you'll probably get beaten up. But poetry is a really strong, beautiful form to me, and a lot of innovation in language comes from poetry.

Poetry is at least an elegance and at most a revelation.

I really just love reading. It's my favorite thing, performing my poems live. Reading by reading, I just kind of follow my nose.

Truly fine poetry must be read aloud. A good poem does not allow itself to be read in a low voice or silently. If we can read it silently, it is not a valid poem: a poem demands pronunciation. Poetry always remembers that it was an oral art before it was a written art. It remembers that it was first song.

Poetry is the key to the hieroglyphics of nature.

This proves that great lyric poetry can die, be reborn, die again, but will always remain one of the most outstanding creations of the human soul.

Poetry is a street fighter. It has sharp elbows. It can look after itself. Poetry can't be used for manipulation; it's why you never see good poetry in advertising.

A poem is bound by language, but a poetics is not.

My work should be seen as poetry.

I love to write poetry.

Poetry is not an art or a branch of art: it's something more.

Poetry. I read Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and Jane Hirschfield. I like to read Billy Collins out loud.

I'm trying to make the poems as musical as I can - from the inception. So that whether they're read on the page, or people read them aloud, or I read them aloud, the musicality will be kind of a given.

The single thing I've found it valuable to memorize is poetry.

As far as I'm concerned, the voices of Washington, black Washington, it's poetry, man. There's beauty in it.

Poetry was my 'in' to the idea that I could express myself through art.

I always turn to Frank O'Hara and David Berman's 'Actual Air,' which came out in 1999. He's a poet I haven't tired of.

I believe that poetry should communicate.

Coming from a very inarticulate family made me try to speak for those who can't express themselves and created a need for articulation at its most ceremonial - poetry.

When you write poetry you are always addressing the world somehow.

I have a favorite poem. From Rudyard Kipling. It's called 'L'Envoi.'