I don't write poetry. I just quote others who do.

Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash. ~Leonard Cohen

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

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth. There is no happiness like mine. I have been eating poetry.~Mark Strand, "Eating Poetry," Reasons for Moving, 1968

There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money, either. ~Robert Graves, 1962 interview on BBC-TV, based on a very similar statement he overheard around 1955

Poetry is what gets lost in translation. ~Robert Frost

Imaginary gardens with real toads in them. ~Marianne Moore's definition of poetry, "Poetry," Collected Poems, 1951

A poem is never finished, only abandoned. ~Paul Valéry A Certain World, 1970, MBT p258

He who draws noble delights from sentiments of poetry is a true poet, though he has never written a line in all his life. ~George Sand, 1851

Always be a poet, even in prose. ~Charles Baudelaire, "My Heart Laid Bare," Intimate Journals, 1864

Poets are soldiers that liberate words from the steadfast possession of definition. ~Eli Khamarov, The Shadow Zone

Poetry is the journal of the sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air. Poetry is a search for syllables to shoot at the barriers of the unknown and the unknowable. Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away. ~Carl Sandburg, Poetry Considered

Poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that which is distorted. ~Percy Shelley, A Defence of Poetry, 1821

Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history. ~Plato, Ion