May Swenson quotes

“The best poetry has its roots in the subconscious to a great degree. Youth, naivety, reliance on instinct more than learning and method, a sense of freedom and play, even trust in randomness, is necessary to the making of a poem.”
-- May Swenson

Source : May Swenson, Gardner McFall (1998). “Made with words”, Univ of Michigan Pr

#Play Quotes #Roots Quotes #Naivety Quotes

“Body my house my horse my hound what will I do when you are fallen”
-- May Swenson

Source : "Question" l. 1 (1954)

#Horse Quotes #House Quotes #Body Quotes

“Love is ... the bite into bread again.”
-- May Swenson

#Love Is Quotes #Bread Quotes

“Poetry can magnify experience.”
-- May Swenson

Source : May Swenson (1971). “More poems to solve”, Atheneum

#Poetry Quotes

“The summer that I was ten - Can it be there was only one summer that I was ten? It must have been a long one then.”
-- May Swenson

Source : May Swenson (2013). “May Swenson: Collected Poems: (Library of America #239)”, p.96, Library of America

#Summer Quotes #Long Quotes

“Bat doesn't hit ball, bat meets it.”
-- May Swenson

Source : May Swenson (2013). “May Swenson: Collected Poems: (Library of America #239)”, p.495, Library of America

#Bats Quotes #Balls Quotes

“Take earth for your own large room and the floor of earth carpeted with sunlight and hung round with silver wind for your dancing place.”
-- May Swenson

Source : May Swenson (2013). “May Swenson: Collected Poems: (Library of America #239)”, p.675, Library of America

#Wind Quotes #Dancing Quotes #Earth Quotes

“My downtime tends to resemble my uptime. Weekends are workdays, but toned down. Over the whole weekend, I may have five meetings, as opposed to six on a weekday. I used to play piano for 30 minutes at night, but I had to pull that out of my schedule. I don't have time for nonwork stuff.”

“Anyone who's got a guitar, you like to pick it up. I can play a couple of songs, some '50s rock and roll, a bit of Elvis. That's it, really - I'm not a musician, I'm not a singer.”

“There is more similarity in the marketing challenge of selling a precious painting by Degas and a frosted mug of root beer than you ever thought possible.”

“Hatred, intolerance, poor hygienic conditions and violence all have roots in illiteracy, so we're trying to do something to help the poor and the needy.”

“I am a Minnesotan, and not just because I root for the Vikings and the Twins. I like the Minnesota-nice sensibility. I like the liberal tradition; I like the Hubert Humphrey tradition fighting for civil rights.”

“I write plays about things that I can't resolve in my mind. I try to root things out.”

“This submission to the threshold of a cross is at the very root of our following Jesus; it changes the game completely.”

“Modern liberalism has many roots. One of the most important is the ideas of a man described by an American critic as 'his satanic free-trade majesty John Stuart Mill' and revered by others.”

“The superficial distinctions of Fascism, Bolshevism, Hitlerism, are the concern of journalists and publicists; the serious student sees in them only one root-idea of a complete conversion of social power into State power.”

Source : "Our Enemy, The State". Book by Albert Jay Nock, Caldwell, Idaho, Caxton Press, 1950.

“I woke early like a condemned man to the naivety of birdsong.”