Modern Poetry Quotes

“Modern poetry, for me, began not in English at all but in Spanish, in the poems of Lorca.”
― W.S. Merwin

“You are the hybrids of golden worlds and ages splendidly conceived.”
― Aberjhani, Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry

“We were never supposed to be in love; for everything that exists inside a heart eventually dies.”
― Laura Chouette, Profound Reverie

“Poetry is not an esoteric art cultivated by dreamy young men in open collars and with wispy beards. Its finest masters have always been men and women of outstanding energy and great, though by no means common, sense. Poetry is the most economical way of saying certain things that cannot be said in any other way. At its most intense it expresses better than other forms of literature whatever is left of us when we are not involved in instinct-following, surviving, competing, or problem-solving. Its major property is not, as some suppose, beauty. It is power. It is the most powerful form of communication. It does the most work per syllable, operating on a vast field—that of our emotions. It gains its efficiency from the use of certain levers—rhythm, music, rhyme, metaphor, and many more—for which other forms of communication are less well adapted. Some poetry, especially modern poetry, is difficult. But just as our ears have accustomed themselves to difficult music, so our understanding, if we are willing to make an effort, can accustom itself to the most condensed and superficially strange verse. At one time poetry was as democratic an art as the novel is nowadays. It can be so again, if we are willing to make it so.”
― Clifton Fadiman, The New Lifetime Reading Plan: The Classic Guide to World Literature

“A reverie is one soul's river -
a word is one heart's vein.”
― Laura Chouette

“Neuere Poeten tun viel Wasser in die Tinte. (More recent poets put a lot of water in the ink.) -- Goethe: Aus Makariens Archiv. Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre. III 18”
― Johann Wolgang von Goethe

“دلم
دیوانه بودن
با تو را می خواست...”
― Mahdi Akhavan Sales

“I kept every letter - only to be reminded of the wrong one's words can cause.”
― Laura Chouette

“بهترین جای جهان، فرصت آغوش تو”
― شهیار قنبری, دریا در من

“In case you didn’t know

I too went home after the ceremony

And replayed the silent pauses of our failed encounter.
I thought of a new clever thing I wish I said

And you’ll never know it and I won’t know yours.

In case you didn’t know

I imagine weddings within the first hour of meeting you

I felt your peek, but pretended not to look your way

I looked you up online and now don’t know where to start
That you whispered in my ear and I’ll masturbate

To the once hot air on my neck.

In case you didn’t know

When I turned the corner, I cried.
I thought I heard you, too.
Maybe both our loved ones
Share the same hospital.

In case you didn’t know

I wore bright colors and made the afternoon men laugh,
But tonight I’ll drink to darkness
because I have no one.
They pay me well, but I only want that other thing—
Your poetry, in case I didn’t know.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, The Goodbye Song

“Just as a critic jumps at an obscure modern poem to tear it apart and bring out the hidden meaning, this woodcutter was ripping open the pith of the massive logs. God seemed to have designed him to chop wood--he derived the greatest pleasure in life by chopping monster-like logs.”
― Basanta Kumar Satpathy, The One-eyed Chick and Other Stories

“A million morrows returned,
But many more yesterdays had already gone
And I still asked her for a million more
i asked her for those tomorrows
which haven't seen their dawn.”
― G. P. Moci, A LONG VERSE OF SORROW

“A thought is an empire - a thought about love is a universe.”
― Laura Chouette

“لا يجرح السيف غمداً وهو يطعنه!
ويجرح القلب صدرٌ وهو يحتضنُ…”
― Mahdi Mansour

“لم آتِ، لكني أتيتُ...
ومضيتُ لكن ما مضيتُ
قلقاً على شكل النهايةِ
لا ابتديتُ ولا انتهيتُ
ورأيتُ أني لو أراك
أريق بعدك ما رأيتُ..
الليل صبحٌ مضمرٌ
والضوء قبل صباه زيتُ
وأنا وأنت غمامتان
نضيء أجمل ما اكتويتُ
فعلام تجمعنا الأماكن
طالما الكلمات بيتُ؟!
وإلام نسكبُ والقناني
تحتسيني ما احتسيتُ
إني أطعتُ قصيدتي
وندمت أن نفسي عصيتُ”
― Mahdi Mansour

“أصعب رحيل على الإطلاق هو ذلك الذي يأخذ شكل البقاء...”
― Mahdi Mansour

“السيئات يذهبن الحسنات...
الجميلات يذهبن العقل...”
― Mahdi Mansour

“أجمل الأوطان، تلك التي تأخذ شكل امرأة...”
― Mahdi Mansour

“Just as a consummate cook will prepare a most delicate repast out of the most poor materials, so will the modern poet concoct us a most popular poem from the weakest emotions, and the most tiresome platitudes. The only difference is, that the cook would prefer good materials if he could get them, whilst the modern poet will take the bad from choice.”
― William Hurrell Mallock, Every Man His Own Poet Or, The Inspired Singer's Recipe Book

“we are the pain our forefathers decided to carry forward.”
― arihant