Anne Stevenson Quotes

Quotes about:

• Each word bears its weight, so you have to read my poems quite slowly.

  Anne Stevenson

  Poetry, Weight, Bears

  46 Copy quote

• The sea is as near as we come to another world.

  Anne Stevenson

  Ocean, Sea, Water

  Anne Stevenson (2005). “Poems 1955-2005”, Bloodaxe Books Limited

  31 Copy quote

• I play with language a great deal in my poems, and I enjoy that. I try to condense language, that is, I try to express complicated but I hope real emotions as simply as possible. But that doesn't mean the poems are simple, just that they are as truthful as I can make them.

  Anne Stevenson

  Real, Mean, Simple

  4 Copy quote

• There's no friend like someone who has known you since you were five.

  Anne Stevenson

  Friends, No Friends, Five

  ANNE STEVENSON (1977). “COIL OF SERPENTS”

  9 Copy quote

• Poets should ignore most criticism and get on with making poetry.

  Anne Stevenson

  Criticism, Poet, Should

  7 Copy quote

• A poem might be defined as thinking about feelings - about human feelings and frailties.

  Anne Stevenson

  Thinking, Poetry, Feelings

  26 Copy quote

• I write, or used to write, to explain to myself situations I couldn't otherwise solve or understand. Meditation comes very naturally to me.

  Anne Stevenson

  Writing, Meditation, Used

  4 Copy quote

• Blackbirds are the cellos of the deep farms.

  Anne Stevenson

  Bird, Blackbirds, Farms

  'Green Mountain, Black Mountain' (1982)

  36 Copy quote

• My soul,
  how will I recognize you if we meet?

  Anne Stevenson

  Soul, My Soul, Ifs

  4 Copy quote

• I like rhyme because it is memorable, I like form because having to work to a pattern gives me original ideas.

  Anne Stevenson

  Memorable, Ideas, Giving

  7 Copy quote

• I work very hard on all my poems, but most of the work consists of trying not to sound as if I had worked. I try to make them sound as natural as possible, but within a quite strict form, which to my ears has a lot to do with musical rhythm and sound.

  Anne Stevenson

  Musical, Trying, Sound

  4 Copy quote

• Mind led body
  to the edge of the precipice.
  They stared in desire
  at the naked abyss.
  If you love me, said mind,
  take that step into silence.
  If you love me, said body,
  turn and exist.

  Anne Stevenson

  Silence, Mind, Desire

  Anne Stevenson (2005). “Poems 1955-2005”, Bloodaxe Books Limited

  5 Copy quote

• I think a poet, like a painter, should be a craftsperson.

  Anne Stevenson

  Thinking, Poet, Should

  4 Copy quote

• I remain loyal to Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert in music and to Shakespeare and Jane Austen in literature.

  Anne Stevenson

  Literature, Loyal, Austen

  4 Copy quote

• Yes, I do often write poems from the mind, but I hope I don't ignore feelings and emotions.

  Anne Stevenson

  Writing, Feelings, Mind

  7 Copy quote

• I dislike literary jargon and never use it. Criticism has only one function and that is to help readers read and understand literature. It is not a science, it is an aid to art.

  Anne Stevenson

  Art, Science, Hygiene

  7 Copy quote

• There comes a time when you have to trust your own judgment, when you must close your eyes and let your instinct rule you.

  Anne Stevenson

  Eye, Intuition, Judgment

  ANNE STEVENSON “A RELATIVE STRANGER\”

  4 Copy quote

• I'm not really quiet or shy. Ask any of my friends! But I always ground my poetry in life itself. Poetry is an art of language, though, so I am always aware of every word's meaning, or multiple meanings.

  Anne Stevenson

  Friends, Art, Shy

  4 Copy quote

• I have always made my own rules, in poetry as in life - though I have tried of late to cooperate more with my family. I do, however, believe that without order or pattern poetry is useless.

  Anne Stevenson

  Believe, Order, Useless

  7 Copy quote

• I don't like poetry that just slaps violent words on a canvas, as it were.

  Anne Stevenson

  Canvas, Violent, Slap

  7 Copy quote

• My earlier poems were sadder than my poems are today, perhaps because I wrote them in confusion or when I was unhappy. But I am not a melancholy person, quite the contrary, no one enjoys laughing more than I do.

  Anne Stevenson

  Laughing, Confusion, Unhappy

  7 Copy quote

• You sleep with a dream of summer weather,
  wake to the thrum of rain—roped down by rain.
  Nothing out there but drop-heavy feathers of grass
  and rainy air. The plastic table on the terrace
  has shed three legs on its way to the garden fence.
  The mountains have had the sense to disappear.
  It's the Celtic temperament—wind, then torrents, then remorse.
  Glory rising like a curtain over distant water.
  Old stonehouse, having steered us through the dark,
  docks in a pool of shadow all its own.
  That widening crack in the gloom is like good luck.
  Luck, which neither you nor tomorrow can depend on.

  Anne Stevenson

  Summer, Dream, Rain

  Anne Stevenson, “Drench”

  6 Copy quote

• democracy is dying. We are ruled by faceless bureaucrats and lecherous puritans. ... You think about it. 'All right for me but not for you' is their philosophy.

  Anne Stevenson

  Philosophy, Thinking, Democracy

  ANNE STEVENSON “A RELATIVE STRANGER\”

  4 Copy quote

• There is far too much literary criticism of the wrong kind. That is why I never could have survived as an academic.

  Anne Stevenson

  Criticism, Too Much, Kind

  8 Copy quote

• I am now seventy, rather glad, really, that I won't live to see the horrors to come in the 21st century.

  Anne Stevenson

  Horror, Century, Glad

  8 Copy quote

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