Quotes about Poetry Meaning

Even when poetry has a meaning, as it usually has, it may be inadvisable to draw it out... Perfect understanding will sometimes almost extinguish pleasure. Votes: 1

Often people, when they're confronted with a poem, it's like someone who keep saying 'what is the meaning of this? What is the meaning of this?' And that dulls us to the other pleasures poetry offers. Votes: 1

I'm not really quiet or shy. Ask any of my friends! But I always ground my poetry in life itself. Poetry is an art of language, though, so I am always aware of every word's meaning, or multiple meanings. Votes: 1

I don't think of poetry as a 'rational' activity but as an aural one. My poems usually begin with words or phrases which appeal more because of their sound than their meaning, and the movement and phrasing of a poem are very important to me. Votes: 1

To design is much more than simply to assemble, to order, or even to edit: it is to add value and meaning, to illuminate, to simplify, to clarify, to modify, to dignify, to dramatize, to persuade, and perhaps even to amuse. To design is to transform prose into poetry. Votes: 1

Such discussions help us very little to enjoy what has been well done in art or poetry, to discriminate between what is more and what is less excellent in them, or to use words like beauty, excellence, art, poetry, with a more precise meaning than they would otherwise have. Votes: 1

For a lot of people, well-meaning teaching has made poetry seem arcane, difficult, a kind of brown-knotting medicine that might be good for you but doesn't taste so good. So I tried to make a collection of poetry that would be fun. And that would bring out poetry as an art, rather than the challenge to say smart things. Votes: 1

Get rid of words and meaning, and there is still poetry. Votes: 0

Poetry is language surprised in the act of changing into meaning. Votes: 0

Get rid of words, and get rid of meaning, and still there is poetry. Votes: 0

People who look for symbolic meaning fail to grasp the inherent poetry and mystery of the images. Votes: 0

The meaning of poetry has no sureness of direction; is like the sling, it is not under control. Votes: 0

Poetry, unlike oratory, should not aim at clarity... but be dense with meaning, 'something to be chewed and digested'... Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

If you want meaning, you read poetry or a novel or something, you don't read song lyrics. You're supposed to listen to them with music. Votes: 0

Even when poetry has a meaning, as it usually has, it may be inadvisable to draw it out . . .. Perfect understanding will sometimes almost extinguish pleasure. Votes: 0

The land is like poetry: it is inexplicably coherent, it is transcendent in its meaning, and it has the power to elevate a consideration of human life. Votes: 0

Often when I write poetry I don't quite know what I'm saying myself. I mean, I can't restate the poem. The meaning of the poem is the poem. Votes: 0

In the Book of Poetry there are three hundred poems, but the meaning of all of them may be put in a single sentence: Have no debasing thoughts. Votes: 0