Poetry Friday: Edward Hirsch and Quotes of the Day

For National Poetry Month, I'm posting a poetry quote each day, but seeing as it's Poetry Friday, I have to up the stakes.

I give you this marvelous passages of quotes from Edward Hirsch's How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry. He is talking of metaphor, and shares this series of examples from other poets, finishing up with some zingers of his own.

"The poem is a capsule where we wrap up our punishable secrets (William Carlos Williams). A poem is a well-wrought urn (Cleanth Brooks), a verbal icon (W.K. Wimsatt). A poem is a walk (A.R. Ammons); a poem is a meteor (Wallace Stevens). A poem might be called a pseudo-person. Like a person it is unique and addresses the reader personally (W. H. Auden). A poem is a hand, a hook, a prayer. It is a soul in action."

Poetry Friday is hosted today by ayuddha.net