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The universe of poetry is the universe of emotional truth. Our material is the way we feel and the way we remember. (p 23)

— Muriel Rukeyser The Life of Poetry (1949)

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Poetry

More quotes by Muriel Rukeyser

The meanings of poetry take their growth through the interaction of the images and the music of the poem.

The Life of Poetry (1949)

Moment to moment, we can grow, if we can bring ourselves to meet the moment with our lives.

The Life of Poetry (1949)

The poetic image is not a static thing. It lives in time, as does the poem.

The Life of Poetry (1949)

The cutting of films is a parable in the motion of any art that lives in time, as well as a parable in the ethics of communication.

The Life of Poetry (1949)

Belief has its structures, and its symbols change. Its tradition changes. All the relationships within these forms are inter-dependent.

The Life of Poetry (1949)

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There is a property in the horizon which no man has but he whose eye can integrate all the parts, that is, the poet.

Ralph Waldo Emerson Nature (1836)

Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality.

T. S. Eliot Tradition and the Individual Talent (1919)

Poetry, unlike oratory, should not aim at clarity...but be dense with meaning, 'something to be chewed and digested'.

George Chapman Ovid's Banquet of Sense (1595)

I am no poet, but if you think for yourselves, as I proceed, the facts will form a poem in your minds.

Michael Faraday

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Muriel Rukeyser (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.