10 Quotes that Capture & Invigorate the Poet’s Life

Quotes are fun, but I am all about specificity. There are a lot of quotes about writing that apply to any type of creative writer, whether fiction is your friction or poetry is your party. However, there are also a lot of quotes that are quite prose-specific and don’t capture the good and bad of being a poet.

There are lots of quotes out there by poets and lots of quotes from poems. They’re often interesting, but they weren’t quotes about the actual life of a poet. They didn’t go into the unique experiences and trials of being someone who writes poetry.

Sometimes, you just need to feel less alone as you hone your craft. Being a poet isn’t easy; the poet’s life is one with much rejection, more revision, and pep talks in between.

Every poet goes through similar trials. The following quotes get into the grim, humorous, and motivational nooks and crannies of what it really is like to be a poet.

“Whatever you get out of poetry — take it. take it. take it.

Words are better off felt than understood.”

― Sanober Khan

Poetry is can be interpreted by the heart before it’s fully interpreted by the mind.

“O, only left to myself, what a poet I will flay myself into.”

― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

It’s a somber quote, but writing is too often a solitary activity. That solitary nature of writing poetry often makes us too engrossed in trying to craft the perfect piece or crafting ourselves into what we think of as a perfect poet.

It sometimes doesn’t feel like there are enough fellow poets out there. Worse, it doesn’t always feel like there are many people who still read poetry. It can be hard to find fellow poets who are dealing with the same troubles. It takes a lot of time to find an audience for your words. But here’s a fun fact from the National Endowment for the Arts—22 million adults in the US read poetry in their free time.

“A good poem is a contribution to reality. The world is never the same once a good poem has been added to it.”

― Dylan Thomas

As a poet myself, I like to focus on the beginning of this quote; a poem is a contribution to reality. It focused on the value of putting your words out into the world.

“Poetry is what gets lost in translation.”

― Robert Frost

Frost’s words are usually thought of at their literal value. Translating poetry or lyrics from one language to another is no easy task since it takes such mastery of language to make words flow.

However, it’s also interesting to think about how these words from such a prolific poet could be interpreted in a more creative way. There are so many other kinds of translations that happen, our thoughts into our words, our feelings onto paper, where things can get lost in translation if we aren’t careful.

“The poet’s job is to put into words those feelings we all have that are so deep, so important, and yet so difficult to name, to tell the truth in such a beautiful way, that people cannot live without it.”

― Jane Kenyon

Poetry is such a flexible type of writing that it’s tricky to truly summarize it. Many have tried, but I don’t think there’s a universal definition that will work for absolutely every poet.

Regardless, this quote is lovely enough to resonate with many of us.

“The poet is much more the one who inspires, than the one who is inspired.”

― Paul Eluard

It’s not exactly a happy quote, but it is true. You may not feel remarkably inspired and creative at every moment, but if your words are inspiring others, that’s a beautiful thing.

“All good poems are victories over something.”

― Stephen Dunn

When Stephen Dunn (and his shiny Pulitzer Prize) taught classes at my university, I heard stories of young undergraduate poets bursting into tears at some of the feedback he would give on their poems. However, thinking about a poem as a victory over some kind of thought or problem is inspiring.

“Every notary carries about inside him the debris of a poet.”

― Gustave Flaubert

This quote is sobering. There’s no getting around that. So many of us hold day jobs because poetry doesn't pay the bills. But even with a day job, we don't want to carry the debris of our lost passion. I like to think about this quote as a grim reminder to keep chasing, keep pushing, and keep writing.

There’s so much you can learn about someone through poetry. You can find out what they value the most in life, their dreams, and the uniqueness of their experiences. Poetry is the most intimate way to learn another person’s perspective and all you need to do is read.

“Trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky, We fell them down and turn them into paper,

That we may record our emptiness.”

― Kahlil Gibran

There’s so much irony in poets—myself included—who use a lot of nature imagery and celebrate nature in poetry. This is a beautiful way to look at trees, paper, and the plight of how we write about the things that leave us cut down.

“Always be a poet, even in prose.”

― Charles Baudelaire

When poets write prose and bring the traits of one craft into another, incredible beauty emerges. It’s a happy reminder of what it really means to be absorbed by poetry. No matter what you’re writing, the poetic spirit finds ways to spark through.

At the end of the day, the more positivity we have in the poetry community, the better off we all are. We need a sense of community in order to thrive. By connecting with other poets and letting poets of the past guide us, we can come together and share common experiences.