Mary Szybist Quotes

And if they haven't got poetry in them, there's nothing you can do that will produce it.

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

It's not easy to define poetry.

The object of poetic activity is essentially language: whatever his beliefs and convictions, the poet is more concerned with words than with what these words designate.

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

Poetry is one of the destinies of speech... One would say that the poetic image, in its newness, opens a future to language.

Poets don't draw. They unravel their handwriting and then tie it up again, but differently.

My work should be seen as poetry.

Poetry and novels are lists of our devotions. We love the feel of making the marks as the feelings are rising and falling.

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.

Poetry is fascinating. As soon as it begins the poetry has changed the thing into something extra, and somehow prose can go over into poetry.

Poets deal in writing about feelings and trying to find the language and images for intense feelings.

Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.

My opinion is that a poet should express the emotion of all the ages and the thought of his own.

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

Till now poets were privileged to insert a certain proportion of nonsense - very far in excess of one-half of one per cent - into their otherwise sober documents.

I want to be a poet and have a chance to explore that and let people know what's really on my mind.

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

A poem records emotions and moods that lie beyond normal language, that can only be patched together and hinted at metaphorically.

I consider a poem to be a kind of experiment where a number of elements are brought together under test conditions to see how they will interact to create meaning or relevance.

Poetry is not a matter of feelings, it is a matter of language. It is language which creates feelings.

A poet is someone who stands outside in the rain hoping to be struck by lightning.

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

Poetry is the exquisite expression of exquisite expressions.