Rules Of Poetry Quotes & Sayings

Mathematics is an activity governed by the same rules imposed upon the symphonies of Beethoven, the paintings of DaVinci, and the poetry of Homer. — Edward Kasner

When people start talking about enjambment and line endings, I always shut them up. This is not something to talk about, this is a private matter, it's up to the poet. — James Tate

We have certain rules for traditional lyric poetry in Korea. I twist my body, confused by what to say and how to act, facing these rules. Confronting traditional lyricism, I speak with a bare body without the tattoos of culture on it. — Kim Hyesoon

Shakespeare wrote great poetry and preposterous plays. Who really cares, for example, which petty tyrant rules Milan? Or who succeeds to the throne of Denmark? Or why the barons ganged up on Richard II? — Edward Abbey

The rules or 'laws' of poetry are only tentative devices, an approximate scheme. There is no Sinaitic recipe for poetry, for the individual poem is the norm. — Louis MacNeice

And when you write a poem within the accepted poem-form, making it sound like a poem because a poem is a poem is a poem, you are saying "good morning" in that poem, and well, your morals are straight and you have not said SHIT, but wouldn't it be wonderful if you could ... instead of sweating out the correct image, the precise phrase, the turn of a thought ... simply sit down and write the god damned thing, throwing on the color and sound, shaking us alive with the force, the blackbirds, the wheat fields, the ear in the hand of the whore, sun, sun, sun, SUN!; let's make poetry the way we make love; let's make poetry and leave the laws and the rules and the morals to the churches and the politicians; let's make poetry the way we tilt the head back for the good liquor; let a drunken bum make his flame, and some day, Robert, I'll think of you, pretty and difficult, measuring vowels and adverbs, making rules instead of poetry. — Charles Bukowski

That this is a practice contrary to the rules of criticism will be readily allowed; but there is always an appeal open from criticism to nature. The end of writing is to instruct; the end of poetry is to instruct by pleasing. That the mingled drama may convey all the instruction of tragedy or comedy cannot be denied, because it includes both in its alterations of exhibition, and approaches nearer than either to the appearance of life, by shewing how great machinations and slender designs may promote or obviate one another, and the high and the low co-operate in the general system by unavoidable concatenation. — Samuel Johnson

The way in which modern German poetry follows theories reminds me of pupils who, scolded by their teacher for their insubordination, justify themselves by saying that they invented new rules of propriety according to which they are quite well- behaved. — Franz Grillparzer

He who sees a play that is regular, and answerable to the rules of poetry, is pleased with the comic part, informed by the serious, surprised at the variety of accidents, improved by the language, warned by the frauds, instructed by examples, incensed against vice, and enamoured with virtue; for a good play must cause all these emotions in the soul of him that sees it, though he were never so insensible and unpolished. — Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

Be the man who has the spirit of a ruthless tiger, ravaging every dusty corner of my soul.
Be the man for whom I will tame myself voluntarily..
Be the man who can make me forget my birth date in moments of utter dellusion.
Be the man whose arms are my harbor, whose lips are my shore, and whose name is my only salvation.
Be the man who erases my past and draws my future with trails of roses and kisses.
Be the man who makes me sigh behind the windows of Poetry, longing to be written.
Be the man whose cigarette's ashes are confounded with mine.
Be the man whose voice moves mountains inside me.
Be the man whose eyes devour the innocence within me with every piercing glance.
Be the man for whom I will transform exceptions into rules.
Be the man who will dare to tear this poem from my hands.
The man who will rewrite with the uncertainty of the futur every single one of my verses. — Malak El Halabi

Students often have such a lofty idea of what a poem is, and I want them to realize that their own lives are where the poetry comes from. The most important things are to respect the language; to know the classical rules, even if only to break them; and to be prepared to edit, to revise, to shape. — Yusef Komunyakaa

I have always made my own rules, in poetry as in life - though I have tried of late to cooperate more with my family. I do, however, believe that without order or pattern poetry is useless. — Anne Stevenson

Poetry aside, a religion is really a moral code that is expressed through legends, myths, or any type of literary device in order to establish a system of beliefs, values, and rules with which to regulate a culture or a society. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

When you depart from standard usage, it should be deliberate and not an accidental lapse. Like a poet who breaks the rules of poetry for creative effect, this only works when you know and respect the rule you are breaking. If you have never heard of the rules you are breaking, you have no right to do so, and you are likely to come off like a buffoon or a barbarian. Breaking rules, using slang and archaic language can be effective, but it is just as likely to give you an audience busy with wincing. — N.D. Wilson

One of the rules of Greek lament poetry is that it mustn't mention the dead by name in case of invoking a ghost. Maybe the 'Iliad,' crowded with names, is more than a poem. Maybe it's a dangerous piece of the brightness of both this world and the next. — Alice Oswald

The rules of life are nothing that cannot be fixed. — Shannon A. Thompson

Freedom is poetry, taking liberties with words, breaking the rules of normal speech, violating common sense. Freedom is violence. — Norman O. Brown

For if in careless summer days
In groves of Ashtaroth we whored,
Repentant now, when winds blow cold,
We kneel before our rightful lord;
The lord of all, the money-god,
Who rules us blood and hand and brain,
Who gives the roof that stops the wind,
And, giving, takes away again;
Who spies with jealous, watchful care,
Our thoughts, our dreams, our secret ways,
Who picks our words and cuts our clothes,
And maps the pattern of our days;
Who chills our anger, curbs our hope,
And buys our lives and pays with toys,
Who claims as tribute broken faith,
Accepted insults, muted joys;
Who binds with chains the poet's wit,
The navvy's strength, the soldier's pride,
And lays the sleek, estranging shield
Between the lover and his bride. — George Orwell

The oldest among Kashmiris often claim that their is nothing new about their condition, that they they have been slaves of foreign rulers since the sixteenth century, when the Moghul emperor Akbar annexed Kashmir and appointed a local governer to rule the state. In the chaos of post-Moghul India, the old empire rapidly disintegrating, Afghani and Sikh invaders plundered Kashmir at will. The peasantry was taxed and taxed into utter wretchedness; the cultural and intellectual life, which under indigenous rulers had produced some of the greatest poetry, music, and philosophy in the subcontinent, dried up. Barbaric rules were imposed in the early nineteenth century, a Sikh who killed a native of Kashmir was fined nothing more than two rupees. Victor Jacquemont, a botanist and friend of Stendahl's who came to the valley in 1831, thought that nowhere else in India were the masses as poor and denuded as they were in Kashmir. — Pankaj Mishra

Part of writing is discovering the rules of the game and then deciding whether to follow the rules or to break them. The great thing about the game of poetry is that it's always your turn - I guess that goes back to my being an only child. So once it's under way, there is a sense of flow. — Billy Collins

If we go on in this way, we shall have a new art of poetry, of which one of the first rules will be: To remember to forget that there are any such things as sunshine and music in the world. — Thomas Love Peacock

Level, they use this as a poor excuse to disregard the rules of the sharia. Drinking, dancing, music, poetry, and painting — Elif Shafak

The spirit of poetry, like all other living powers, must of necessity circumscribe itself by rules, were it only to unite power with beauty. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Let a man be stimulated by poetry, established by the rules of propriety, and perfected by music. — Confucius

When Love Was New

When love was new
and life was young,
and once we walked
in gracious sun,
I never dreamt of darker days,
or feared that fate had cruel ways.

When life was strong
and love was free,
and time was once
eternity -
we never planned for more or less,
nor stopped to think we should digress.

When love was young
and life was new,
and everything
was once our due,
I never doubted what I owned,
nor knew the cost was merely loaned.

Now love is tried
and life is old,
and still my feet
drag down the road -
not knowing where it all has gone,
nor how much more it still goes on.

But life grows new
and love gets old,
and this tired heart
stays off the cold -
not caring it compares with fools,
nor wise enough to fear the rules.
-Drea Damara — Drea Damara

There are a couple of utterly important rules to writing anything, whether it's a novel, a short story or a collection of poetry. And they're really the only rules.
1: Quit talking about it and start.
2: Focus and finish it. — Nicholas Trandahl

Be true to your word and your work and your friend. — John Boyle O'Reilly

Come boy, and pour for me a cup
Of old Falernian. Fill it up
With wine, strong, sparkling, bright, and clear;
Our host decrees no water here.
Let dullards drink the Nymph's pale brew,
The sluggish thin their blood with dew.
For such pale stuff we have no use;
For us the purple grape's rich juice.
Begone, ye chilling water sprite;
Here burning Bacchus rules tonight! — Catullus

Those in whom the faculty of reason is predominant, and who most skillfully dispose their thoughts with a view to render them clear and intelligible, are always the best able to persuade others of the truth of what they lay down, though they should speak only in the language of Lower Brittany, and be wholly ignorant of the rules of rhetoric; and those whose minds are stored with the most agreeable fancies, and who can give expression to them with the greatest embellishment and harmony, are still the best poets, though unacquainted with the art of poetry. — Rene Descartes

These men seem not to know that poetry has its particular rules and precepts; and that history is governed by others directly opposite. — Lucian Of Samosata

We have more poets than judges and interpreters of poetry. It is easier to write an indifferent poem than to understand a good one. There is, indeed, a certain low and moderate sort of poetry, that a man may well enough judge by certain rules of art; but the true, supreme, and divine poesy is equally above all rules and reason. And whoever discerns the beauty of it with the most assured and most steady sight sees no more than the quick reflection of a flash of lightning. — Michel De Montaigne

The good, supreme, divine poetry is above the rules and reason. Whoever discerns its beauty with a firm, sedate gaze does not see it, any more than he sees the splendor of a lightning flash. It does not persuade our judgement, it ravishes and overwhelms it. — Michel De Montaigne

The Bible isn't an answer book. It isn't a self-help manual. It isn't a flat, perspicuous list of rules and regulations that we can interpret objectively and apply unilaterally to our lives. The Bible is a sacred collection of letters and laws, poetry and proverbs, philosophy and prophecies, written and assembled over thousands of years in cultures and contexts very different from our own, that tells the complex, ever-unfolding story of God's interaction with humanity. — Rachel Held Evans

The legend of our times, it has been suggested, might be "The Revenge of Failure". This is what Envy has done for us. If we cannot paint well, we will destroy the canons of painting and pass ourselves off as painters. If we will not take the trouble to write poetry, we will destroy the rules of prosody and pass ourselves off as poets. If we are not inclined to the rigors of an academic discipline, we will destroy the standards of that discipline and pass ourselves off as graduates. If we cannot or will not read, we will say that "linear thought" is now irrelevant and so dispense with reading. If we cannot make music, we will simply make a noise and persuade others that it is music. If we can do nothing at all, why! we will strum a guitar all day, and call it self-expression. As long as no talent is required, no apprenticeship to a skill, everyone can do it, and we are all magically made equal. Envy has at least momentarily been appeased,and failure has had its revenge. — Henry Fairlie

We all know what good writing is: It's the novel we can't put down, the poem we never forget, the speech that changes the way we look at the world. It's the article that tells us when, where, and how, the essay that clarifies what was hazy before. Good writing is the memo that gets action, the letter that says what a phone call can't. It's the movie that makes us cry, the TV show that makes us laugh, the lyrics to the song we can't stop singing, the advertisement that makes us buy. Good writing can take form in prose or poetry, fiction or nonfiction. It can be formal or informal, literary or colloquial. The rules and tools for achieving each are different, but one difficult-to-define quality runs through them all: style. "Effectiveness of assertion" was George Bernard Shaw's definition of style. "Proper words in proper places" was Jonathan Swift's. You — Mitchell Ivers

In The Land of Poetry and Fighting, Efficiency rules the throne. I try to live here, so I shave my head because hair is dead and dead is inefficient. — Cameron Conaway

We have heard much about the poetry of mathematics, but very little of it has as yet been sung. The ancients had a juster notion of their poetic value than we. The most distinct and beautiful statements of any truth must take at last the mathematical form. We might so simplify the rules of moral philosophy, as well as of arithmetic, that one formula would express them both. — Henry David Thoreau

Plot, rules, nor even poetry, are not half so great beauties in tragedy or comedy as a just imitation of nature, of character, of the passions and their operations in diversified situations. — Horace Walpole

I believe that every English poet should read the English classics, master the rules of grammar before he attempts to bend or break them, travel abroad, experience the horrors of sordid passion, and - if he is lucky enough - know the love of an honest woman. — Robert Graves