“If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.”

“Poetry is life distilled.”

“Let me live, love, and say it well in good sentences.”

“Poetry is the journal of a sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in air”

“Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.”

“Poetry is simply the most beautiful, impressive, and widely effective mode of saying things and hence its importance.”

“Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.”

“I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is prose; words in their best order, poetry: the best words in the best order.”