Selfometer Poems
Introduction to Selfometer Poems
Use the Index to your right to view Selfometer poems
Poems can express feelings, thoughts and ideas in a much more concise and sensitive way that can be achieved using prose.
Poems also have many things in common, which we believe may be represented in the quotes presented below. These quotes also reflect our own deep thoughts and feelings, regarding poetry and, especially, our efforts and goals in trying to write poems, as best as we know how.
Many Selfometer authors are not trained poets, but have an urge to be creative with words, for all sorts of reasons. For example, a love of language and communication (which poet wouldn’t?); Many have a personal need to express and understand their feelings and ongoing experiences, and to share these feelings and experiences with others; and finally, a longing for the world to be a better place, especially for our children.
In terms of writing poetry, ideas that were expressed initially in a few words, often take a direction of their own, sometimes leading to a mixture of frustration and satisfaction with what has been written. As part of this process, most of us read the works of some of the greatest poets known, which then inspires us, but more often than not makes us ask, “what do we know about poetry?” But words and emotions are a force unto themselves, determined to connect, understand and expunge!
Copyright Statement:
All poems on this site listed under the heading SELFOMETER POEMS are copyright Brenda M Oldfield. ALL SELFOMETER POEMS are free to use for any personal or non-commercial purpose. You may also freely distribute these poems, post on any web site, publish, etc. but they cannot be sold without permission. Plagiarizing is also strictly forbidden. If you use or distribute any SELFOMETER POEMS, you must in all cases identify the author. Thank you.
POETRY QUOTATIONS
"Join me in my quest for a greater understanding of our existence. Join me in my desire for a greater self. Join me as I seek the humility to love and understand my fellow man."
Bryant H. McGill
"We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to understand."
Cecil Day Lewis
"I came to poetry through the urgent need to denounce injustice, exploitation, humiliation. I know that's not enough to change the world. But to remain silent would have been a kind of intolerable complicity."
Tahar Ben Jelloun
"The poet is one who is able to keep the fresh vision of the child alive."
Anais Nin
"Most people ignore most poetry because most poetry ignores most people."
Adrian Mitchell
"I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood."
Audre Lorde
"Many men of science and poets have in their own manner, by various ways and means, and aided by others, sought unceasingly to create a more tolerable world for everyone."
Eyvind Johnson
"Words have the power to both destroy and heal. When words are both true and kind, they can change our world."
Gautama Buddha
"Poetry is a matter of life, not just a matter of language."
Lucille Clifton
"My entire soul is a cry, and all my work is a commentary on that cry."
Nikos Kazantzakis
"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
"I think that the job of poetry, its political job, is to refresh the idea of justice, which is going dead in us all the time."
Robert Hass
"I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again."
Oscar Wilde
"Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary."
Kahlil Gibran