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Poetry

Poetry is not an expression of the party line. Its that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, thats what the poet does. – Allen Ginsberg

When I was younger, I felt it was my duty to wake people up. I thought poetry was asleep. I thought rock n roll was asleep. – Patti Smith

I came into music because I thought the presentation of poetry wasnt vibrant enough. So I merged improvised poetry with basic rock chords. – Patti Smith

What I wanted to do in rock n roll was merge poetry with sonic scapes, and the two people who had contributed so much to that were Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison. – Patti Smith

Anticipating that most poetry will be worse than carrying heavy luggage through OHare Airport, the public, to its loss, reads very little of it. – Russell Baker

I think there are things in my story that have helped my creativity. Your father being killed, for instance, is one of the best things that could happen to a kid if hes going to write poetry or songs. – Roger Waters

You pick up loads of baggage with your first record with reaction to it from fans and critics. So I went to Ireland by myself for a couple of weeks with my guitar. I read lots of poetry, I read Patti Smiths autobiography and started words and phrases and then songs started to take shape. – Ellie Goulding

Poetry is the language we speak in the most terrifying or ecstatic passages of our lives. But the very word poetry scares people. They think of their grade school teachers reciting Hiawatha and they groan. – Erica Jong

I thought to spend my declining years writing poetry and teaching – but that wont pay the Bergdorfs bill. I think Ill move to somewhere life is cheaper. – Erica Jong

Its always a combination of physics and poetry that I find inspiring. Its hard to wrap your head around things like the Hubble scope. – Tom Hanks

If a poem is not memorable, theres probably something wrong. One of the problems of free verse is that much of the free verse poetry is not memorable. – Robert Morgan

Colloquial poetry is to the real art as the barbers wax dummy is to sculpture. – Ezra Pound

The biggest problem is people are afraid of poetry, think they cant understand it or that it will be boring. – Caroline Kennedy

I never thought Id be doing poetry books. I never really studied poetry. But the first one I did was after my mother died, and I realized that people sort of think and talk about her style and fashion, but in fact, what made her the person she was was really her love of reading and ideas. – Caroline Kennedy

Ive written poetry since I was in the first grade, and it wasnt until I was a little bit older that I realized poetry could be put to music and become a song. – Jordin Sparks

Rap is poetry set to music. But to me its like a jackhammer. – Bette Midler

Ive never read a political poem thats accomplished anything. Poetry makes things happen, but rarely what the poet wants. – Howard Nemerov

As for how criticism of Keats poetry relates to criticism of my own work, Ill leave that for others to decide. – Jane Campion

And, I mean, I think poetry does need to be met to some extent, especially, I guess, 19th century poetry, and for me, its just been so worth the effort. Its like Im planting a garden in my head. – Jane Campion

While also, importantly, not wanting to dumb it down or pretend the days of difficult poetry are over, because we live in a pluralist culture and theres room for difficult poetry alongside rap and everything else. And poetry wont be for everyone, but everyone should have the choice. – Andrew Motion