12 Definitions of Poetry

1.Poetry is like painting (Horace (65-8BC) a Roman poet)

2.Poetry is a speaking picture, with this end to teach and delight. (Sir Philip Sidney (1554- 1584) an English poet)

3.The spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings … recollected in tranquility. (William Wordsworth (1770- 1850) a Romantic poet)

4.Prose is words in their best order; poetry is the best words in their best order. (Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) an English Romantic poet)

5.Poetry makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar. (Percy Shelley (1792- 1822) a Romantic poet)

6.The rhythmical creation of beauty (American poet & writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849))

7.The criticism of life (Matthew Arnold (1822- 1888) English poet and critic)

8.If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry (American poet Emily Dickinson (1830-1886))

9.Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat (Robert Frost (1874-1963) American poet)

10.Poetry is as exact a science as geometry (Gustav Flaubert (1821- 1997) French novelist)

11.The poet's first and most important tool is syntax; the challenge is to make it do what you want it to invisibly. (Susan Wicks (1947- ) English poet)

12.Rhythm is the unconscious engine of poetry. (Anne Stevenson (1933- ) English poet)