Quotes Category
Posted on March 22, 2019
I need to reach beyond interior decoration, biography. Art is a way of melting out through one’s skin. “What, who is this about?” is not the essential question. A poem is not about; it is out of and to. Passionate language in movement. The deep structure is always musical, and physical — as breath, as pulse
Posted on February 1, 2019
I have been increasingly willing to let the unconscious offer its materials, to listen to more than the one voice of a single idea. Perhaps a simple way of putting it would be to say that instead of poems about experiences I am getting poems that are experiences, that contribute to my knowledge and my emotional life even while they reflect and assimilate it.
Posted on January 21, 2019
Mark Twain was underestimated by his fans; Henry James was largely ignored by his countrymen and preferred to live in England (he even became a British Citizen). America was, alas, a country of great eccentrics and great prudes, of great writers and few readers.
Posted on January 4, 2019
To claim that literature on its own is going to change reality would be an act of madness or arrogance. It seems to me no less foolish to deny that it can aid in making this change.
Posted on January 2, 2019
Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, grace and power in it
Posted on January 2, 2019
It is always what is under pressure in us, especially under pressure of concealment–that explores in poetry.
Posted on December 30, 2018
If I have to push my mind to go in a certain direction that is not intuitive, it can no longer imagine freely. It’s more like a committee throwing out ideas for a whiteboard marketing strategy.