no mud, no lotus.
–Anonymous

“There’s a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets –Leonard Cohen

Poetry is about the grief. Politics is about the grievance.
–Robert Frost

“To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget.”
-–Arundhati Roy

“Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.”
–T. S. Eliot

“Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks.” –Plutarch

“Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words.”
–Edgar Allan Poe

“Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.”
–Leonard Cohen

“Poetry is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal which the reader recognizes as his own.”
–Salvatore Quasimodo

“La pluma es la lengua del alma: cuales fueren los conceptos que en ella se engendraren, tales serán sus escritos.”
–Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote