Quotes About The Purpose Of Poetry

#1. The poet's nature is all searching, creator and nourisher of desire; the poet is like the heart in a people's breast, a people without a poet is a mere heap of clay. If the purpose of poetry is the fashioning of men, poetry is likewise the heir of prophecy.

Muhammad Iqbal

#2. The purpose of poetry is to remind us
how difficult it is to remain just one person,
for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors,
and invisible guests come in and out at will.

Czeslaw Milosz

#3. The purpose of poetry is to restore to mankind the possibility to wonder.

Octavio Paz

#4. The purpose of poetry is to make life complete in itself.

Wallace Stevens

#5. It was not the purpose of poetry to record anything and everything, to merely describe either the outer world or some subjective mood, but to speak from the imagination of the poet to the imagination of the reader.

Kathleen Raine

#6. SELF
BENEATH THE SURFACE,
VEILED ON PURPOSE,
ALL KNOWING AND GRAND,
DIRECTED, GUIDED, BY THE ETERNAL HAND,
SUSTAINED, FULFILLED, FULL OF LIGHT,
REALIZATION ACHIEVED, BY WILLFUL MIGHT.

Charles Edward

#7. You are either in a state of perfection or a state of learning. Reading is one of the best ways to learn about our lives and purpose!

Cupideros

#8. You might as well ask an artist to explain his art, or ask a poet to explain his poem. It defeats the purpose. The meaning is only clear thorough the search.

Rick Riordan

#9. Okay, then I'll just say I love you. There is nothing in this world more important to me than you are. I'm only content when you're near. My whole purpose is to be what you need me to be. It's not poetry, but it's from my heart. Will that do?

Colleen Houck

#10. Making of poetry, music, dance and art as culture-making in the service of nation-making. You can find writings that make that purpose for art quite explicit.

Mark McMorris

#11. Anyone who has no need of anybody but himself is either a beast or a God.
Aristotle

Bruce Wayne Sullivan

#12. I have not the slightest pretension to call my verses poetry; I write now and then for no other purpose than to relieve depression or to improve my English.

Alfred Nobel

#13. A revolution in the eyes of man carries purpose.
A revolution in the eyes of the awakened carries bliss.

Sal Martinez

#14. I didn't want to sing.
I wanted to be music.

Jenim Dibie

#15. Poetry can have varied and useful functions; and seduction is apparently something worth writing poetry for.

Shira Wolosky

#16. The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.

Rainer Maria Rilke

#17. Though my verse but roam the air And murmur in the trees, You may discern a purpose there, As in music of the bees.

Alfred Austin

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

James Buchan

#19. My life's purpose is to write poetry - but behind the poetry must be the vision of a fresh revelation for men.

William Soutar

#20. Your life is a poetry with purpose.

Debasish Mridha

#21. The purpose of the poetry is not to dazzle us with an astonishing thought, but to make one moment of existence unforgettable and worthy of unbearable nostalgia.

Milan Kundera

#22. With me poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion.

Edgar Allan Poe

#23. Somehow something has gone wrong with poetry in our culture. We have lost touch with its purpose and value, and in doing so, we have lost contact with essential aspects of our own emotional and spiritual lives.

Gregory Orr

#24. Be Certain:
One cannot possibly guess their way through life. As every creation is manifested with a definite purpose by our Creator, so it must be with all actions we undertake.

Therone Shellman

#25. Poetry has historically been allied with religion and morals; it has served the purpose of penetrating the mysterious depths of things.

John Dewey

#26. Disobedience to conscience is voluntary; bad poetry, on the other hand, is usually not made on purpose.

C.S. Lewis

#27. With me poetry has been not a purpose, but a passion; and the passions should be held in reverence: they must not - they cannot at will be excited, with an eye to the paltry compensations, or the more paltry commendations, of mankind.

Edgar Allan Poe

#28. Lucifer unbound his absolution
His purpose took unstoppable form
A wyrm whose brilliance blinded
Tenacity burned as radiant as the Almighty
Lucifer remembered this so vividly
A fond memory of when God stood thunderstruck

D.J. LeMarr

#29. Keeping you alive,
that is my primary purpose.
I am costless,
omnipresent.
Poor oxygen,
pitiable oxygen.

Santosh Lamichhane

#30. Science and art, or by the same token, poetry and prose differ from one another like a journey and an excursion. The purpose of the journey is its goal, the purpose of an excursion is the process.

Franz Grillparzer

#31. The daily routine of most adults is so heavy and artificial that we are closed off to much of the world. We have to do this in order to get our work done. I think one purpose of art is to get us out of those routines. When we hear music or poetry or stories, the world opens up again.

Ursula K. Le Guin

#32. I have more wisdom than any books ever written in history of times, any scripture ever written which you rhyme but this is not my purpose.

Santosh Kalwar

#33. The wind has a purpose - to rattle the window panes, disturb the cat and make me miss you ...

John Geddes

#34. Prose exists to convey meaning, and no meaning such as prose conveys can be expressed as well in poetry. That's not poetry's purpose.

Basil Bunting

#35. I certainly can't speak for all cultures or all societies, but it's clear that in America, poetry serves a very marginal purpose. It's not part of the cultural mainstream.

Mark Strand