“Defy the law! Write the heartbroken poetry of the World!”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American writer
This appears not to be a Kerouac quote. It has not been found in any of Kerouac's published work.
Misattributed
“A defining mark of poetry is that it defies definition.”
Introduction - ' The Bloodaxe Book of Poetry Quotations' ed. Dennis O'Driscoll 2006
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Dennis O'Driscoll30
Irish poet, critic 1954–2012Related quotes
“Poetry — No definition of poetry is adequate unless it be poetry itself.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist
January 26, 1840
Journals (1838-1859)
Context: Poetry — No definition of poetry is adequate unless it be poetry itself. The most accurate analysis by the rarest wisdom is yet insufficient, and the poet will instantly prove it false by setting aside its requisitions. It is indeed all that we do not know. The poet does not need to see how meadows are something else than earth, grass, and water, but how they are thus much. He does not need discover that potato blows are as beautiful as violets, as the farmer thinks, but only how good potato blows are. The poem is drawn out from under the feet of the poet, his whole weight has rested on this ground. It has a logic more severe than the logician's. You might as well think to go in pursuit of the rainbow, and embrace it on the next hill, as to embrace the whole of poetry even in thought.
“By definition, if prose is a river, poetry is a fountain.”
Michael Longley (1939) poet
'Poetry Ireland Review' Summer 1999
Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer
Source: Dialogues of the Soul and Mortal Self in Time (1975), p. v
“I have defined poetry as a 'passionate pursuit of the Real.”
Czeslaw Milosz (1911–2004) Polish, poet, diplomat, prosaist, writer, and translator
“The limits of the body seem well defined enough as definitions go, but definitions seldom go far.”
Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist
Ramblings In Cheapside (1890)
Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist
Two excellent Persian translations are available. <br class="br"> When the Ayatollah Dictates Poetry http://www.aawsat.net/2015/07/article55344336/when-the-ayatollah-dictates-poetry, Ashraq Al-Awsat (Jul 11, 2015).