27 Poetic Quotes on Poetry on ‘World Poetry Day’

Today is World Poetry Day!

In this digital age, where attention spans are deteriorating and students are becoming extremely restive, poetry is a blessing. It is a very powerful mode of communication that takes a language and transforms it in magical ways.

On World Poetry Day, here are a few quotes on this very mystical form of communication.

1. The crown of literature is poetry. ~ W. Somerset Maugham
2. Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular. ~ Aristotle
3. Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words. ~ Robert Frost
4. Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen. ~ Leonardo da Vinci
5. Poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that which is distorted. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley
6. There is not a particle of life which does not bear poetry within it. ~ Gustave Flaubert
7. Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about what is seen during the moment. ~ Carl Sandburg
8. Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history. ~ Plato
9. Poetry is what happens when nothing else can. ~ Charles Bukowski
10. Poetry: the best words in the best order. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge
11. One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose. ~ Voltaire
12. When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses. ~ John F. Kennedy
13. Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary. ~ Khalil Gibran
14. Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood. ~ T. S. Eliot
15. If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. ~ Emily Dickinson
16. Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility. ~ William Wordsworth
17. Poetry is all that is worth remembering in life. ~ William Hazlitt
18. Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason. ~ Novalis
19. 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. ~ William Cullen Bryant
20. Only the very weak-minded refuse to be influenced by literature and poetry. ~ Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Angel
21. Poetry is the one place where people can speak their original human mind. It is the outlet for people to say in public what is known in private. ~ Allen Ginsberg
22. Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful. ~ Rita Dove
23. Poetry is the deification of reality. ~ Edith Sitwell
24. Poetry lies its way to the truth. ~ John Ciardi
25. A good poem is a contribution to reality. The world is never the same once a good poem has been added to it. A good poem helps to change the shape of the universe, helps to extend everyone’s knowledge of himself and the world around him. ~ Dylan Thomas
26. Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood. ~ T.S. Eliot
27. Poetry, she thought, wasn’t written to be analyzed; it was meant to inspire without reason, to touch without understanding. ~ Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook

Which of these quotes on poetry is your favorite? Are there any others that we have missed? Do let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.