“Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.”– Percy Bysshe Shelley Related Quotes “Poetry is the language we speak in the most terrifying or ecstatic passages of our lives. But the very word poetry scares people. They think of their grade school teachers reciting ‘Hiawatha’ and they groan.”– Erica Jong “There are distinct duties of a poet laureate. I plan a reading series at the Library of Congress and advise the librarian. The rest is how I want to promote poetry.”– Rita Dove “Poetry should… should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance.”– John Keats