Celebrate World Poetry Day with 16 amazing quotes

Courtesy Metro

Every March 21, the world comes together to celebrate poetry in all its glory.

There are no set rules for how to mark the occasion. You can read some poetry. You can perform it. You can write a poem. You can pop along and listen to someone read theirs.

All that matters is that you take a moment to appreciate the highly underrated form of poetry – which, sadly, is still thought of as an old-fashioned thing only literature students and artsy hipsters have an interest in.

Because poetry is wonderful. It’s pure emotion and truth. And no matter who you are, there’s a poem out there that will touch you.

To inspire you to fall back in love with poetry, we’ve rounded up some quotes from poets summing up why it’s something worth getting excited about.

1. Poetry is language at its most distilled and powerful.’ – Rita Dove.
2. ‘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
3. ‘Poetry is truth in its Sunday clothes.’ – Joseph Roux
4. ‘You can find poetry in your everyday life, your memory, in what people say on the bus, in the news, or just what’s in your heart.’ – Carol Anne Duffy
5. ‘A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.’ – Robert Frost
6. ‘If I read a book and it makes my body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry.’ – Emily Dickinson
7. ‘A poet must never make a statement simply because it sounds poetically exciting; he must also believe it to be true.’ – W. H. Auden
8. Most people ignore poetry because most poetry ignores most people.’ -Adrian Mitchell
9. ‘Poetry is the lifeblood of rebellion, revolution, and the raising of consciousness.’ – Alice Walker
10. All great artists draw from the same resource: the human heart, which tells us that we are all more alike than we are unalike.’ – Maya Angelou
11. ‘Poetry: the best words in the best order.’ – Samuel Coleridge
12. ‘Write poetry for God’s sake, it’s the only thing that matters.’  – E. E. Cummings
13. ‘Poetry is the universal language which the heart holds with nature and itself.’ – William Hazlitt
14. ‘Breathe in experience, breathe out poetry.’ – Muriel Rukeyser
15. ‘Poetry is the music of being human.’ – Carol Anne Duffy
16. I would define, in brief, the poetry of words as the rhythmical creation of Beauty.’ – Edgar Allan Poe