Ralph Fletcher

If you want to write poetry, you must have poems that deeply move you. Poems you can't live without. I think of…

— Ralph Fletcher

You don't learn to write by going through a series of preset writing exercises. You learn to write by grappling with a…

— Ralph Fletcher

Writing becomes beautiful when it becomes specific, concrete.

— Ralph Fletcher

“When students write from experience, they can breathe those specifics into their writing- dialect, odd smells, precise names of plants- that can…

— Ralph Fletcher

Poems are the 'daredevil' of writing because a poem will say what nobody else wants to say.

— Ralph Fletcher

Use your notebook to breathe in the world around you.

— Ralph Fletcher

“The real meaning of a poem is to stop time.”

— Ralph Fletcher

Good writing happens when human beings follow particular steps to take control of their sentences-to make their words do what they want…

— Ralph Fletcher

It's misleading to think of writers as special creatures, word sorcerers who possess some sort of magical knowledge hidden from everyone else.…

— Ralph Fletcher

G.K. Chesterton once said: If something is worth doing, it is worth doing badly. I live by this philosophy when I teach…

— Ralph Fletcher

“When someone you love dies, you get a big bowl of sadness put down in front of you, steaming hot. You can…

— Ralph Fletcher

Here's the secret of writing: there is no secret.

— Ralph Fletcher

A notebook can be a clearing in the forest of your life, a place where you can be alone and content as…

— Ralph Fletcher