A poet's mission is to make words do more work than they normally do, to make them work on more than one level.
-Jay Z
"Decoded"
Quotations
Poet
I grew up in this town, my poetry was born between the hill and the river, it took its voice from the rain, and like the timber, it steeped itself in the forests.
-Pablo Neruda
If you know what you are going to write when you're writing a poem, it's going to be average.
-Derek Walcott
I wanted to write the most beautiful poem but that is impossible; the world has written its own.
-Dejan Stojanović
No poet can know what his poem is going to be like until he has written it.
-W. H. Auden
"The Dyer's Hand"
A few moments in a poet’s company teach us more about the essence of art than many a lecture and books.
-Etinne Gilsun
The poet never asks for admiration; he wants to be believed.
-Jean Cocteau
Heaven deliver us, what's a poet? Something that can't go to bed without making a song about it.
-Dorothy L. Sayers
"Busman's Honeymoon"
Each man carries within him the soul of a poet who died young.
-Antoine De Saint Exupéry
When a poet speaks to his own people, the voices of all other poets of other languages who have influenced him are speaking also.
-T. S. Eliot
