Poetry Value Quotes

There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money, either.

When I became poet laureate, I was in a slightly uncomfortable position because I think a lot of poetry isn't worth reading.

No poetry that I'm aware of, however bad or glorious, has ever left somebody a worse person than they were before they read it.

If a poem is not memorable, there's probably something wrong. One of the problems of free verse is that much of the free verse poetry is not memorable.

Better a live doggerel than a dead sonnet.

I cannot understand why poetry is not taught at schools as a way of seeing, a quick, untiring path to essentials.

Since poetry is infinitely valuable, I do not understand why it should be more valuable than this or that which is also infinitelyvaluable. There are artists who perhaps do not think art to be too great, for this is impossible, and yet they are not free enough to be able to rise above their own best accomplishments.

Though we do not have many poets, we certainly have more than we deserve, for we deserve none at all. It is ourselves that we are hurting by our stupidity and ignorance of poetry.

However, if a poem can be reduced to a prose sentence, there can't be much to it.

I now wish that I had spent somewhat more of my life with verse. This is not because I fear having missed out on truths that are incapable of statement in prose. There are no such truths; there is nothing about death that Swinburne and Landor knew but Epicurus and Heidegger failed to grasp. Rather, it is because I would have lived more fully if I had been able to rattle off more old chestnuts — just as I would have if I had made more close friends.

As for literature It gives no man a sinecure. And no one knows, at sight, a masterpiece. And give up verse, my boy, There's nothing in it.

Poetry stands or falls by its music.

Sometimes poetry, it is incomprehensible. But we need incomprehensible stuff! It is very healthy to talk about incomprehensible things! It is very healthy! We need it!

Poetry's always dead, you know? You don't realize how good poetry is until 15 years later.

Is there any purpose to translating poetry? A poem does not contain information of importance, like a signpost or a warning notice.

Poetry is a mere drug, Sir.

As things are, and as fundamentally they must always be, poetry is not a career, but a mug's game. No honest poet can ever feel quite sure of the permanent value of what he has written: He may have wasted his time and messed up his life for nothing.

Probably all the attention to poetry results in some value, though the attention is more often directed to lesser than to greater values.

So few people read poetry. That's sad, isn't it?

it is as unseeing to ask what is the use of poetry as it would be to ask what is the use of religion.

So poetry, which is in Oxford made An art, in London only is a trade.

If it is an imperfect word, no external circumstance can heighten its value as poetry.

I thought it was irrelevant to talk about what a wonderful thing poetry was if you didn't teach people to read.

There is the view that poetry should improve your life. I think people confuse it with the Salvation Army.