Robert Morgan Quotes

59 quotes in 809 categories

• In the later books I am much more at home in the use of language to describe things. I had never thought of that until…
• Maybe the example of Southern fiction writing has been so powerful that Southern poets have sort of keyed themselves to that.
• Neither of my parents has been very sensitive about my writing.
• Some people swear by writing courses, but whether it really helps American poetry, I have doubts.
• Some people want to call me an Appalachian writer, even though I know some people use regional labels to belittle.
• Southern poets are still writing narrative poems, poems in forms, dramatic poems.
• The best books of our times have included the three mature volumes of Philip Larkin. They're very short books of poems, and very carefully arranged.
• With prose you can incorporate more details, develop scenes, sustain the tension in a special way. Prose has its own speed.
• I don't think American poetry has gotten any better in the past 35 years. Oddly enough, creative writing programs seem to have been good for…
• I have taught students from the New York City area so long I have a special affinity and rapport with them. It surprises me sometimes…
• The young people have MTV and rock and roll. Why would they go to read poetry? Poetry belongs to the Stone Age. It awakens in…
• In the late 60s and early 70s, I did get interested in voices, and in narration and embodying the voice, making the poem sound like…
• The great watershed of modern poetry is French, more than English.
• Philip Larkin has a tough honesty and sense of humor that I find irresistible, as a contemporary poet.
• Among the American contemporaries I read with most enjoyment are several North Carolinians. I think the best poetry being written these days is being written…
• The Language Poets are writing only about language itself. The Ashbery poets are writing only about poetry itself. That seems to me a kind of…
• Poetry, almost by definition, calls attention to its language and form.
• The decision to write in prose instead of poetry is made more by the readers than by writers. Almost no one is interested in reading…
• When you have an idea for a story, you want those characters to reach as many people as you can. I think you normally think…
• Teaching writing over the years intrudes on your own writing in important ways, taking away some of the excitement of poetry.

Browse Robert Morgan Quotes by Category