Top 24 Quotes & Sayings by Karl Shapiro

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American poet Karl Shapiro.

Last updated on April 18, 2025.

Karl Jay Shapiro was an American poet. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1945 for his collection V-Letter and Other Poems. He was appointed the fifth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1946.

American - Poet | November 10, 1913 - May 14, 2000

Source: Wikipedia

Laughter and grief join hands. Always the heart Clumps in the breast with heavy stride; The face grows lined and wrinkled like a chart, The eyes bloodshot with tears and tide. Let the wind blow, for many a man shall die.

Karl Shapiro

But with exquisite breathing you smile, with satisfaction of love, And I touch you again as you tick in the silence and settle in sleep.

Karl Shapiro

Already old, the question Who shall die? Becomes unspoken Who is innocent?

Karl Shapiro

In the tight belly of the dead, Burrow with hungry head, And inlay maggots like a jewel.

Karl Shapiro

The good poet sticks to his real loves, those within the realm of possibility. He never tries to hold hands with God or the human race.

Karl Shapiro

To make the child in your own image is a capital crime, for your image is not worth repeating. The child knows this and you know it. Consequently you hate each other.

Karl Shapiro

The body, what is it, Father, but a sign To love the force that grows us, to give back What in Thy palm is senselessness and mud?

Karl Shapiro

Poetry is innocent, not wise. It does not learn from experience, because each poetic experience is unique.

Karl Shapiro

Lastly, his tomb shall list and founder in the troughs of grass. And none shall speak his name.

Karl Shapiro

My soul is now her day, my day her night, So I lie down, and so I rise.

Karl Shapiro

The doctor punched my vein, the captain called me Cain, upon my belly sat the sow of fear.

Karl Shapiro

How something important happens is the business of historians and newspapers, the effect it has is the business of philosophers and writers and especially poets.

Karl Shapiro

Lawyers love paper. They eat, sleep and dream paper. They turn paper into gold, and their files are colorful and their language neoclassical and calli-graphically bewigged.

Karl Shapiro

Keelhaul the poets in the vestry chairs.

Karl Shapiro

Self-knowledge is a dangerous thing, tending to make man shallow or insane.

Karl Shapiro

Leo Connellan has retained his soul and voice in Provincetown and Other Poems.

Karl Shapiro

Haul up the flag, you mourners, Not half-mast but all the way; The funeral is done and disbanded; The devil's had the final say.

Karl Shapiro

The modern essay has regained a good deal of its literary status in our time, much to the credit of Joseph Epstein.

Karl Shapiro

Poetry is not a way of saying things; it's a way of seeing things.

Karl Shapiro

Poets of course are even more unpredictable than other writers, overwhelmed as they are by the moment they inhabit and finding it difficult to connect yesterday with tomorrow.

Karl Shapiro