A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.
Robert Frost

A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.
Robert Frost

A poem is never finished, only abandoned.
Paul Valery

A poem is true if it hangs together. Information points to something else. A poem points to nothing but itself.
E. M. Forster

A poet can survive everything but a misprint.
Oscar Wilde

A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.
W. H. Auden

A poet looks at the world the way a man looks at a woman.
Wallace Stevens

A poet must leave traces of...