Poetry might be defined as the clear expression of mixed feelings.

Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.

Poetry is an awareness of the world, a particular way of relating to reality.

Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words.

I would say poetry is language charged with emotion. It's words, rhythmically organized . . . A poem is a complete little universe. It exists separately. Any poem that has any worth expresses the whole life of the poet. It gives a view of what the poet is.

Poetry is thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.

poetry is a way of seeing and that a poet is not so much a person skilled with words as a person who recognizes the poetry that exists all the time all around us.

Poetry is the one place where people can speak their original human mind. It is the outlet for people to say in public what is known in private.

Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.

Poetry: the best words in the best order.

Poetry is an attempt to penetrate the dense reality to find a place where the simplest things look as new as through the eyes of a child.

As far as I am concerned, poetry is a statement concerning the human condition, composed in verse.

"Poetry is only the highest eloquence of passion, the most vivid form of expression that can be given to our conception of anything, whether pleasurable or painful, mean or dignified, delightful or distressing. It is the perfect coincidence of the image and the words with the feeling we have, and of which we cannot get rid in any other way, that gives an instant "satisfaction to the thought." This is equally the origin of wit and fancy, of comedy and tragedy, of the sublime and pathetic."

Poetry is an act of peace. Peace goes into the making of a poet as flour goes into the making of bread.