“For all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.”
—William Wordsworth

"Hell and night must bring this monstrous birth to world's light" Iago. Othello 1.3
"He that filches me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him and makes me poor indeed." Iago. Othello 3.3

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.~Mario Cuomo (1932- ), U.S. politician.

Poetry is ordinary language raised to the nth power. Poetry is boned with ideas, nerved and blooded with emotions, all held together by the delicate, tough skin of words.
~Paul Engle, New York Times, 17 February 1957

Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.
— P.B. Shelley

Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.
~Kahlil Gibran

"Poetry has to be something more than a conception of the mind. It has to be a revelation of nature. Conceptions are artificial. Perceptions are essential." ~Wallace Stevens

The chief use [of the overt content of poetry]...is to satisfy one habit of the reader, to keep his mind diverted and quiet, while the poem does its work opon him: much as the imaginary burglar is always provided with a nice bit of meat for the house-dog.~T.S. Eliot