- Person
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- Nov 07, 2020
Poetry Quotes
On verse, beauty, and the search to define art.
This set opens with the case for teaching children poetry early, since it broadens young minds and passes on virtue almost by inheritance, then weighs how differently prose and poetry can each carry weight. See Art quotes for related themes.
- Last Updated on Jul 30, 2026
- Question
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- Nov 07, 2020
If we ask a vague question, such as, 'What is poetry?' we expect a vague answer, such as, 'Poetry is the music of words,' or 'Poetry is the linguistic correction of disorder.'
- Memory
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- Nov 07, 2020
If a line of poetry strays into my memory, my skin bristles so that the razor ceases to act.
- Morning
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- Nov 07, 2020
Experience has taught me, when I am shaving of a morning, to keep watch over my thoughts, because, if a line of poetry strays into my memory, my skin bristles so that the razor ceases to act.
- Politics
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- Nov 07, 2020
I was proud my father spoke Arabic fluently - his father sent him to learn Arabic from a sheikh - and we had Arab friends. His task of understanding the Arabs - not only politics but poetry - was very important; he took it as a vocation.
- Language
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- Nov 07, 2020
Students often have such a lofty idea of what a poem is, and I want them to realize that their own lives are where the poetry comes from. The most important things are to respect the language; to know the classical rules, even if only to break them; and to be prepared to edit, to revise, to shape.
- Culture
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- Nov 07, 2020
I grew up in Jerusalem and went to school here. I studied at the Hebrew University - mostly Islam and Arabic: Arab literature, Arab poetry and culture, because I felt like we are living in this region, in the Middle East, and we are not alone: There are nations here whose culture is Arab.
- Frontiers
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- Nov 07, 2020
Poetry is like a bird, it ignores all frontiers.
- Language
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- Nov 07, 2020
When I read the Koran or hear it read, the images and the poetry, the sound of the language is very inspiring.
- Life
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- Nov 07, 2020
Maybe I was blessed that my main drive was purely selfish. I needed to make something, make my life better, wider, have poetry in my life, have something that gives me hope on an everyday basis. That was my main drive all along, really.
- Politics
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- Nov 07, 2020
I've often said that all poetry is political. This is because real poems deal with a human response to reality and politics is part of reality, history in the making. Even if a poet writes about sitting in a glass house drinking tea, it reflects politics.
- Attitude
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- Nov 07, 2020
The attitude that poetry should not be analyzed is prevalent among many who consider themselves experts on children's literature. But I suspected that kids like to look closely at things and figure out what makes them go.
- New
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- Nov 07, 2020