In celebrating World Poetry Day, March 21, UNESCO recognises the unique ability of poetry to capture the creative spirit of the human mind. Here we share some of our favourite poetry quotes.
To have great poets, there must be great audiences.
Walt Whitman
Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love. I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.
Langston Hughes
Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we’ll both be lonely.
Allen Ginsberg
Poetry should be great and unobtrusive, a thought which enters into one’s soul, and does not startle it or amaze it with itself, but with its subject.
John Keats
Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.
T. S. Eliot
Having a coke with you is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne.
Frank O’Hara
A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.
Robert Frost
To elevate the soul, poetry is necessary.
Edgar Allan Poe
Yes, it is true, poetry is delicious; the best prose is that which is most full of poetry.
Virginia Woolf
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
I sing the body electric.
Walt Whitman
What happens to a dream deferred?
Langston Hughes
We would love to hear what your favourite poets, poems or quotes are for World Poetry Day.
