Poet's Place

“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

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson [1830-1886] was an American poet. Little-known during her life, she has since been regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry. Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, into a prominent family with strong ties to its community.

"Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance."

- Carl Sandburg
 

Carl August Sandburg [1878-1967] was an American poet, biographer, journalist, and editor. He won three Pulitzer Prizes: two for his poetry and one for his biography of Abraham Lincoln.

"Poetry: the best words in the best order."

- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Coleridge [1172-1834] was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. His most famous works were The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan.

"Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash."

- Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen [1934-2016]  CC [Order of Canada] GOQ [Order of Quebec] was a Canadian singer-songwriter, poet, and novelist. Themes commonly explored throughout his work include faith and mortality, isolation and depression, betrayal and redemption, social and political conflict, and sexual and romantic love, desire, regret, and loss. He was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was invested as a Companion of the Order of Canada, the nation's highest civilian honor. In 2011 he received one of the Prince of Asturias Awards for literature and the ninth Glenn Gould Prize.

Cohen's most famous song, "Hallelujah", was released on his seventh album, Various Positions (1984). Over 200 other artists have recorded his Hallelujah.

"Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks."

- Plutarch

Plutarch was an ancient Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for his Parallel Lives, a series of biographies of illustrious Greeks and Romans, and Moralia, a collection of essays and speeches.

"Poetry isn't a profession, it's a way of life. It's an empty basket; you put your life into it and make something out of that."

- Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver [1935-2019] was an American poet who won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, and several other honors. Her work is inspired by nature, rather than the human world, stemming from her lifelong passion for solitary walks in the wild.

"In my experience poetry speaks to you either at first sight or not at all. A flash of revelation and a flash of response. Like lightning. Like falling in love."

- J.M Coetzee

J. M. Coetzee is a South-African novelist, essayist, and linguist. He won the Booker Prize twice and was awarded  the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature. He is best known for his novel, Disgrace.

"Poetry makes life what lights and music do the stage."

- Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens [1812-1870] was an English novelist and social critic who created some of the world's best-known fictional characters, and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works include Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, A Christmas Carol, and David Copperfield.

“Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.”

― Robert Frost

Robert Frost was an American poet [1874-1963]. His most famous poems are The Road Not Taken and Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.