Some people swear by writing courses, but whether it really helps American poetry, I have doubts. — Robert Morgan Copy Share Image
The fact that something is in a rhymed form or in blank verse will not make it good poetry. — Robert Morgan Copy Share Image
Maybe the example of Southern fiction writing has been so powerful that Southern poets have sort of keyed themselves to that. — Robert Morgan Copy Share Image
I don't think the creative writing industry has helped American poetry. — Robert Morgan Copy Share Image
I think that it's more likely that in my 60s and 70s I will be writing poetry rather than fiction. — Robert Morgan Copy Share Image
Poetry, almost by definition, calls attention to its language and form. — Robert Morgan Copy Share Image
A poem in form still has to have voice, gesture, a sense of discovery, a metaphoric connection, as any poetry does. — Robert Morgan Copy Share Image
If a poem is not memorable, there's probably something wrong. One of the problems of free verse is that much of the… — Robert Morgan Copy Share Image
I love to compare different time frames. Poetry can evoke the time of the subject. By a very careful choice of words… — Robert Morgan Copy Share Image
I don't think poetry is something that can be taught. We can encourage young writers, but what you can't teach them is… — Robert Morgan Copy Share Image
We have a lot of long narrative poems written in the 20th century, but they're not very well known, and they're not… — Robert Morgan Copy Share Image
The idea of avant-garde art is a very suspicious thing to me, the idea that poetry is new and it keeps being… — Robert Morgan Copy Share Image
Alchemy is the art of far and near, and I think poetry is alchemy in that way. It's delightful to distort size,… — Robert Morgan Copy Share Image
In the late 60s and early 70s, I did get interested in voices, and in narration and embodying the voice, making the… — Robert Morgan Copy Share Image
I seem to keep returning to my father in poems because his personality was so extreme, so driven. He did everything to… — Robert Morgan Copy Share Image
It was less a literary thing than a linguistic, philosophical preoccupation... discovering how far you can go with language to create immediate,… — Robert Morgan Copy Share Image
I seem to keep returning to my father in poems because his personality was so extreme, so driven. He did everything to… — Robert Morgan Copy Share Image
Southern poets are still writing narrative poems, poems in forms, dramatic poems. — Robert Morgan Copy Share Image
Teaching writing over the years intrudes on your own writing in important ways, taking away some of the excitement of poetry. — Robert Morgan Copy Share Image
I learned to impersonate the kind of person that talks about poetry. It comes from teaching, I think. — Robert Morgan Copy Share Image
Philip Larkin has a tough honesty and sense of humor that I find irresistible, as a contemporary poet. — Robert Morgan Copy Share Image
Pound's translation of Chinese poetry was maybe the most important thing I read. Eliot a little bit later. — Robert Morgan Copy Share Image
Among the American contemporaries I read with most enjoyment are several North Carolinians. I think the best poetry being written these days… — Robert Morgan Copy Share Image
The best books of our times have included the three mature volumes of Philip Larkin. They're very short books of poems, and… — Robert Morgan Copy Share Image
You have to really dive deep back into yourself and get rid of so much modern analytical categorization. It's one of the… — Robert Morgan Copy Share Image
I love chapbooks. They're in some ways the ideal form in which to publish and read poems. You can read 19 poems… — Robert Morgan Copy Share Image
The Language Poets are writing only about language itself. The Ashbery poets are writing only about poetry itself. That seems to me… — Robert Morgan Copy Share Image
One of the most powerful devices of poetry is the use of distortions. You can go from talking about the way a… — Robert Morgan Copy Share Image
The Black Mountain poet I like most is the early Creeley. Those early poems seem very lyrical and very traditional, with a… — Robert Morgan Copy Share Image
I don't think American poetry has gotten any better in the past 35 years. Oddly enough, creative writing programs seem to have… — Robert Morgan Copy Share Image
I did not have a very literary background. I came to poetry from the sciences and mathematics, and also through an interest… — Robert Morgan Copy Share Image
Our most famous writers are Faulkner and Eudora Welty and Flannery O'Connor. It would make sense that the poetry would reflect some… — Robert Morgan Copy Share Image
The decision to write in prose instead of poetry is made more by the readers than by writers. Almost no one is… — Robert Morgan Copy Share Image
What actually makes poetry poetry is of course impossible to define. We recognize it when we hear it, when we see it,… — Robert Morgan Copy Share Image
Part of what we love about poetry is the fact that it seems ancient, that it has an authority of ancient language… — Robert Morgan Copy Share Image
The young people have MTV and rock and roll. Why would they go to read poetry? Poetry belongs to the Stone Age.… — Robert Morgan Copy Share Image
I think that it's more likely that in my 60s and 70s I will be writing poetry rather than fiction. — Robert Morgan Copy Share
With prose you can incorporate more details, develop scenes, sustain the tension in a special way. Prose has its own speed. — Robert Morgan Copy Share
When you have an idea for a story, you want those characters to reach as many people as you can. I think you normally… — Robert Morgan Copy Share
What language shall I borrow To thank Thee, dearest Friend, For this, Thy dying sorrow, Thy pity without end? O make me Thine forever,… — Robert Morgan Copy Share
I love to create interesting textures with language. You can do it as long as it seems like a discovery. — Robert Morgan Copy Share
The Black Mountain poet I like most is the early Creeley. Those early poems seem very lyrical and very traditional, with a lot of… — Robert Morgan Copy Share
Philip Larkin has a tough honesty and sense of humor that I find irresistible, as a contemporary poet. — Robert Morgan Copy Share
The decision to write in prose instead of poetry is made more by the readers than by writers. Almost no one is interested in… — Robert Morgan Copy Share
Distance not only gives nostalgia, but perspective, and maybe objectivity. — Robert Morgan Copy Share
Our most famous writers are Faulkner and Eudora Welty and Flannery O'Connor. It would make sense that the poetry would reflect some of those… — Robert Morgan Copy Share
The young people have MTV and rock and roll. Why would they go to read poetry? Poetry belongs to the Stone Age. It awakens… — Robert Morgan Copy Share
