Poetry, whose material is language, is perhaps the most human and least worldly of the arts, the one in which the end product remains closest to the thought that inspired it.

Poetry creates an abstract world using concrete materials-just like life itself.

A poem is nothing but a long word made up of syllables joined together. Syllables by themselves have no meaning. It is therefore futile to struggle with meaning in a poem.

[Poetry] was invented by primitive man to make it easy to remember the second line; then he found a certain beauty in it.

Poetry is an impassioned testament to mans inner freedom.

A poem is something sacred. Let no one Take it for anything except itself.

The poet is an untier of knots, and love without words is a knot, and it drowns.

I am the man devoured by longings For another incarnation, Incarnation of man.

The poet speaks to all men of that other life of theirs that they have smothered and forgotten.

[The poets' role is that of] capturing on their instruments the secret stir of life in the air and giving it voice in the music of prophecy