American - Poet | October 20, 1940 - 3
Autobiography is a genre notorious for falsehood.
Robert Pinsky
AutobiographyGenreFalsehood
I think art is not an ornament or refinement at the fringes of human intelligence, I think it's at the center. It's at the core.
ArtIntelligenceThinkHumanCenter
New Jersey is the most poetic state: close enough to New York to be urban and cosmopolitan, far enough to be desirous and unsure; densely populated, but full of farms and woods, with the most deer of any state.
New YorkWoodsEnoughNewDeerFar
I don't like to have a calm, orderly, quiet place to work. I often compose while driving, compose in my head. It is true that I wrote my little book, 'The Sounds of Poetry, A Brief Guide,' almost entirely in airplanes and airport departure lounges.
WorkPoetryBookCalmDrivingPlace
For an American, there's no automatic place where people love the art of poetry. There's not a social class that considers poetry its property the way in some countries there's a snob value to the art.
LoveArtValuePoetryPeoplePlace
I think my first experience of art, or the joy in making art, was playing the horn at some high-school dance or bar mitzvah or wedding, looking at a roomful of people moving their bodies around in time to what I was doing. There was a piano player, a bass player, a drummer, and my breath making the melody.
TimeArtExperienceDanceJoyThink
I'm far from immune to the American, perhaps historically male, prejudice toward practical and physical competence; I hope I've also considered that prejudice enough to have some distance from it.
HopeAmericanEnoughDistanceFar
Sometimes the ideas that mean the most to you will feel true long before you can quite formulate them or justify them.
IdeasFeelLongYouSometimesTrue
Poetry is a vocal art for me - but not necessarily a performative one. It might be reading to oneself or recalling some lines by memory.
ArtPoetryMemoryMeReadingLines
'Write' is almost the wrong verb for what I do. I think 'compose' is more accurate because you're trying to make the sounds in your mind and in your voice. So I compose while I'm driving or in the shower.
MindVoiceThinkDrivingTryingYou
For a lot of people, well-meaning teaching has made poetry seem arcane, difficult, a kind of brown-knotting medicine that might be good for you but doesn't taste so good. So I tried to make a collection of poetry that would be fun. And that would bring out poetry as an art, rather than the challenge to say smart things.
GoodArtChallengeSmartFunPoetry
All questions of process require an answer that begins with a very important sentence, and the sentence is: 'Everybody is different.' Whatever way of working you name - methodical, haphazard, gets up early in the morning, sleeps all day, works at night, revises immensely, never revises at all - someone has made great work with that way.
WorkMorningGreatDayNightName
Copyright © 2024 QuotesDict Robert Pinsky quotes