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" I write as a way of keeping myself going. You build your life around writing, and it's what gets you through. So it's partly just curiosity to see what you can do. "
Robert Morgan
Curiosity
Life
Myself
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" The idea of avant-garde art is a very suspicious thing to me, the idea that poetry is new and it keeps being new the way Chevrolets every year are new. "
Robert Morgan
New
Poetry
Art
" Teaching writing over the years intrudes on your own writing in important ways, taking away some of the excitement of poetry. "
Robert Morgan
Important
Over
Writing
" 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. "
Robert Morgan
Stereotypes
Students
Dirt
" Some people want to call me an Appalachian writer, even though I know some people use regional labels to belittle. "
Robert Morgan
Me
Know
People
" One of the most powerful devices of poetry is the use of distortions. You can go from talking about the way a minute passes to the way a century passes, or a lifetime. "
Robert Morgan
Way
Go
Poetry
" 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. "
Robert Morgan
Poetry
Decision
Narrative
" 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. "
Robert Morgan
You
Teach
Taught
" 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. "
Robert Morgan
Great
Back
Deep
" 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 us perceptions that go back to those times. "
Robert Morgan
People
Rock And Roll
Rock
" Some people swear by writing courses, but whether it really helps American poetry, I have doubts. "
Robert Morgan
Some
Poetry
People
" We have a lot of long narrative poems written in the 20th century, but they're not very well known, and they're not read by very many people. "
Robert Morgan
Well
Known
People
" Neither of my parents has been very sensitive about my writing. "
Robert Morgan
Been
Writing
Sensitive
" If a poem is not memorable, there's probably something wrong. One of the problems of free verse is that much of the free verse poetry is not memorable. "
Robert Morgan
Memorable
Wrong
Free
" With prose you can incorporate more details, develop scenes, sustain the tension in a special way. Prose has its own speed. "
Robert Morgan
Own
Details
You
" Distance not only gives nostalgia, but perspective, and maybe objectivity. "
Robert Morgan
Only
Perspective
Distance
" I love chapbooks. They're in some ways the ideal form in which to publish and read poems. You can read 19 poems in a way you can't sit down and read 60 to 70 pages of poems. "
Robert Morgan
Love
You
Sit
" 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
" 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 that there are students from anywhere else. "
Robert Morgan
New York
Special
City
" Poetry, almost by definition, calls attention to its language and form. "
Robert Morgan
Poetry
Language
Attention
" 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 by Southerners. "
Robert Morgan
American
Best
Enjoyment
" If people associate me with a region, that's fine with me. "
Robert Morgan
Fine
Me
Region
" I tell students they will know they are getting somewhere when a scene is so painful they can just barely bring themselves to write about it. A writer has to draw blood. "
Robert Morgan
Know
Painful
Students
" I considered going to film school; I took a course in film and was very interested in filmmaking as well as film writing. "
Robert Morgan
Filmmaking
Going
Film
" 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 dead end. "
Robert Morgan
Me
Language
Kind
" Pound's translation of Chinese poetry was maybe the most important thing I read. Eliot a little bit later. "
Robert Morgan
Important
The Most Important
Poetry
" I think that it's more likely that in my 60s and 70s I will be writing poetry rather than fiction. "
Robert Morgan
More
Than
Think
" Fiction is about intimacy with characters, events, places. "
Robert Morgan
Events
Intimacy
Places
" Southern poets are still writing narrative poems, poems in forms, dramatic poems. "
Robert Morgan
Narrative
Dramatic
Writing
" Maybe the example of Southern fiction writing has been so powerful that Southern poets have sort of keyed themselves to that. "
Robert Morgan
Writing
Example
Powerful
" 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 of prose as a way of doing that. It fits our time, the culture. "
Robert Morgan
People
You
Time