I’m a poet. And then I put the poetry in the drama. I put it in short stories, and I put it in the plays. Poetry’s poetry. It doesn’t have to be called a poem, you know.
I would define, in brief, the Poetry of words as “The Rhythmical Creation of Beauty.”[Also known as:]Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words.
I saw the gooseflesh on my skin. I did not know what made it. I was not cold. Had a ghost passed over? No, it was the poetry.
I have felt great advances in my poetry, the main one being a growing victory over word nuances and a superfluity of adjectives.
I by no means rank poetry high in the scale of intelligence – this may look like Affectation – but it is my real opinion – it is the lava of the imagination whose eruption prevents an earth-quake.
Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.
For awhile after you quit Keats all other poetry seems to be only whistling or humming.
Everything one invents is true, you may be sure. Poetry is as precise as geometry.[Tout ce qu’on invente est vrai, sois-en sûre, la poésie est une chose aussi précise que la géométrie.]
All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.