quotations about poetry
Poets must, it seems to me, learn how to use a great many words before they can know how to use a few skilfully. Journalistic verbiage is not fluency.
MARSDEN HARTLEY
"The Business of Poetry"
It is not in the power of every man or woman to be a poet, but all can cultivate a taste for it; and doing so tends to instruct the mind in what is refined and beautiful, heroic and elevating. Who could read "Paradise Lost" by that king of poets, Milton, without taking, for the time being at any rate, a flight towards heaven. Who could follow Camoens in his "Lusiad" without in imagination sailing through lovely isles covered with tropical foliage, and wafting spicy breezes through the fragrant air. Who that has read the unfortunate Fawkner's "Shipwreck," but has realized all the horrors of a water grave. Has Byron never led you to Greece, or Burns to the Ayrshire cotter's home? Have not the all-but inspired poems of that gifted Christian (all-but earthly saint), Heber, carried you as a missionary to "Afric's sunny fountains," or to the "Manger of Bethlehem?" Did Walter Scott never turn you for the time into a noble Scottish chieftain, or Longfellow into a North American Indian? Go to the poets when your mind is weary of the world, and there you will find rest.
T. AUGUSTUS FORBES LEITH
"On Cultivating a Taste for Poetry", Short Essays
Almost as essential to poetry, and equally as regards poetry of the loftiest and poetry of the lowliest kind, is lucidity, or clearness of expression. No poet of much account is ever obscure, unless the text happens to be corrupt.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus