Poetry connects individuals who live miles apart. Poetry reaches into the deepest pits of sorrow to extract a single fragment of meaning. Poetry radiates extreme happiness while reflecting the actual realities of the world. Poetry captures artistic expressions that other mediums fail to grasp.

According to Jane Hirshfield, a poet "can’t write an image, a metaphor, a story, a phrase, without leaning a little further into the shared world, without recognizing that your supposed solitude is at every point of its perimeter touching some other. You can’t read a poem—a good poem, at least—by someone else, and not recognize in their experience your own face. This is a continual reminder of amplitude, intimacy, and tenderness."

I could provide reason upon reason to defend poetry's importance, beauty, and impact. Many are unable to comprehend the written word's true power, and these unfortunate individuals suffer in a world of the unknown.

However, I feel that the world's most prolific poets and authors can express these sentiments in a more eloquent manner.

Long live poetry, and long live linguistic artistry.

"Poetry is what in a poem makes you laugh, cry, prickle, be silent, makes your toe nails twinkle, makes you want to do this or that or nothing, makes you know that you are alone in the unknown world, that your bliss and suffering is forever shared and forever all your own." ― Dylan Thomas

"Poetry is a language in which man explores his own amazement." – Christopher Fry


"A poet’s work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep." – Salman Rushdie

"My role in society, or any artist or poet’s role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all." – John Lennon

"Don’t use the phone. People are never ready to answer it. Use poetry." ― Jack Kerouac


"To be a poet is a condition, not a profession." – Robert Frost