Pattiann Rogers quotes
-
“How can I appreciate light from an aging sun shining through new configurations neither pine nor ash? How can I extol the nuturing fragrances from the spires, the spicules of a landscape not yet formed or seeded?”
-- Pattiann RogersSource : Pattiann Rogers (1994). “Firekeeper: new & selected poems”
-
“Straight up from this road Away from the fitted particles of frost Coating the hull of each chick pea, And the stiff archer bug making its way In the morning dark, toe hair by toe hair, Up the stem of the trillim, Straight up through the sky above this road right now, The galaxies of the Cygnus A cluster Are colliding with each other in a massive swarm Of interpenetrating and exploding catastrophes. I try to remember that.”
-- Pattiann RogersSource : Pattiann Rogers (2014). “The Expectations of Light”, p.35, Princeton University Press
-
“In I Praise My Destroyer, Diane Ackerman demonstrates once again her love for the specific language that rises from the juncture of self and the natural world, and her skillful use of that language. Whether she turns her attention to the act of eating an apricot 'the color of shame and dawn,' or to 'the omnipotence of light,' or to grief when 'All the greens of summer have blown apart,' her linking of unique images, her energetic wit and whimsy, her compassionate investment in life, always bring new pleasures and perceptions to the reader.”
-- Pattiann Rogers -
“I have thought for many years that the audience any creative writer imagines has a great effect on what gets written.”
-- Pattiann RogersSource : Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.
-
-
“What triggers a poem for me is not the same as what triggers an essay. My mind is geared now to looking for, or to watching out for, the image that attracts my attention or the phrase or the strange juxtaposition that strikes me bodily, or an odd question or supposition.”
-- Pattiann RogersSource : "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.
-
“In poetry I can let the language go, allow an image that seems out of place to enter and see what happens, always listening to the music that's being created, just like the world around us, never predictable, always shifting and intertwining, reflecting and echoing itself.”
-- Pattiann RogersSource : "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.
-
“One of the most important differences I see between prose and poetry is the music of the language.”
-- Pattiann RogersSource : "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.
-
“I see my poems as interlinked. No poem gives an answer. It may offer other questions, it may instigate other questions that then become poems.”
-- Pattiann RogersSource : "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.
-
-
“I like poetry because poetry - even in free verse - is formal, and it has to be very concise and packed and rich, and I like the feeling of having to do that, having to make the language tight and still free, as if the deepest freedom is created by the restrictions.”
-- Pattiann RogersSource : Interview with Carolyn Perry and Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.
-
“The poem is a process, a way for me to discover questions, to ask them clearly or to discover the results of certain suppositions. Suppositions are a form of questioning.”
-- Pattiann RogersSource : Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.
-
“As far as I can tell, writing the essays didn't change the way I wrote poetry. Although the essays contain scattered passages that might be called lyrical, they often contain closed statements of what is only suggested in the poetry.”
-- Pattiann RogersSource : "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.
-
“Poetry doesn't function by saying things straightforwardly because the language is too imprecise, too limited often, to address the underlying subject of most poems.”
-- Pattiann RogersSource : "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.
-
-
“Often when I write poetry I don't quite know what I'm saying myself. I mean, I can't restate the poem. The meaning of the poem is the poem.”
-- Pattiann RogersSource : "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.
-
“My object when writing prose is to write as clearly as possible. I think I know what I'm saying in prose, and I want others to understand it and to be able to restate it.”
-- Pattiann RogersSource : "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.
-
“I approach writing a poem in a much different state than when I am writing prose. It's almost as if I were working in a different language when I'm writing poetry. The words - what they are and what they can become - the possibilities of the words are vastly expanded for me when I'm writing a poem.”
-- Pattiann RogersSource : "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.
-
“Poetry is very playful with language. I think all poetry, at its heart, is playful. It's doing unusual and playful things with the language, stirring it up. And prose is not doing that. Primarily it's not attempting to do that.”
-- Pattiann RogersSource : "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.
-
-
“I think parts of my soul have been saved by my writing, not in the sense of escaping death, but escaping the death of the moment, perhaps.”
-- Pattiann RogersSource : "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.
-
“I've spent much of my life being attuned to watching for an image or a phrase that can trigger what might be a poem - could become a poem.”
-- Pattiann RogersSource : "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.
-
“To my mind, most prose poems are more prose than poetry. They don't possess most of the qualities of a poem.”
-- Pattiann RogersSource : "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.
-
“I'd rather call prose poems something else, for clarity - something like "poetic prose," prose that contains a quality of poetry, but not poems.”
-- Pattiann RogersSource : "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.
-
-
“A poetic list is a talent in itself. You can write a list of things, and it can be boring.”
-- Pattiann RogersSource : "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.
-
“We're all vulnerable in our various ways, and what we are physically, our bodies, is what has developed with the goal of keeping that life safe and intact, at least until we have procreated. That's what our bodies are, the protection of life.”
-- Pattiann RogersSource : "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.
-
“I love the language. I'm just totally fascinated by the sound and the look of words and the kinds of cadences you can create with them, the various kinds of music.”
-- Pattiann RogersSource : "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.
-
“Often I'm struck by something that I read; then I go and research it a little more, especially if I begin a poem, and I find out that I need to know more. Then I usually get intrigued and excited about whatever it is I'm writing about.”
-- Pattiann RogersSource : "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.
-
You may also like:
-
Barry Lopez
Author -
David Markson
Novelist -
Donald Barthelme
Author -
Gilbert Sorrentino
Novelist -
Hubert Selby, Jr.
Writer -
James Galvin
Poet -
John Barth
Novelist -
Linda Gregg
Poet -
Mark Doty
Poet -
Matthew Dickman
Poet -
Raymond Federman
Novelist -
Rikki Ducornet
Writer -
Rita Dove
Poet -
Robert Coover
Author -
Robert Creeley
Poet -
Sharon Olds
Poet -
William Gaddis
Novelist -
William H. Gass
Novelist -
Flann O'Brien
Novelist
