“Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.”
-William Wordsworth
“…that species of composition, which is opposed to works of science, by proposing for its immediate object pleasure, not truth; and from all other species… it is discriminated by proposing to itself such delight from the whole, as is compatible with a distinct gratification from each component part.”
-Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“If I read a book, and it makes my whole body so cold no fire ever can warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.”
-Emily Dickinson
“If you want a definition of poetry, say, ‘Poetry is what makes me laugh or cry or yawn, what makes my toenails twinkle, what makes me want to do this or that or nothing.’ and let it go at that.”
-Dylan Thomas
