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" I did not have a very literary background. I came to poetry from the sciences and mathematics, and also through an interest in Japanese and Chinese poetry in translation. "

Robert Morgan

Interest

Through

Poetry

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" Fiction is about intimacy with characters, events, places. "

" 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 narrative in verse. "

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Robert Morgan

Know

People

" Some people swear by writing courses, but whether it really helps American poetry, I have doubts. "

" It was less a literary thing than a linguistic, philosophical preoccupation... discovering how far you can go with language to create immediate, elementary experience. "

" 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 a real person talking. "

" One of the most powerful devices is to distort time, to go from human time to atomic time, geologic time. Sometimes you can actually accomplish that, with one unexpected word choice. "

" I encourage students to pursue an idea far enough so they can see what the cliches and stereotypes are. Only then do they begin to hit pay dirt. "

" 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 a critic pointed that out. "

" The Black Mountain poet I like most is the early Creeley. Those early poems seem very lyrical and very traditional, with a lot of voice and character. "

" Alchemy is the art of far and near, and I think poetry is alchemy in that way. It's delightful to distort size, to see something that's tiny as though it were vast. "

" I don't think poetry is something that can be taught. We can encourage young writers, but what you can't teach them is the very essence of poetry. "

" I considered going to film school; I took a course in film and was very interested in filmmaking as well as film writing. "

" You have to really dive deep back into yourself and get rid of so much modern analytical categorization. It's one of the great things poetry does. "

" The great watershed of modern poetry is French, more than English. "

Robert Morgan

Modern

English

" The fact that something is in a rhymed form or in blank verse will not make it good poetry. "

" I don't think the creative writing industry has helped American poetry. "

" I think that it's more likely that in my 60s and 70s I will be writing poetry rather than fiction. "

Robert Morgan

Than

Think

" Teaching writing over the years intrudes on your own writing in important ways, taking away some of the excitement of poetry. "