Latest Pattiann Rogers Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• Ordering is very important with essays, even if a reader doesn't read the essays or the poems in order through the book...

  Pattiann Rogers

  Book, Order, Important

  "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.

• I see my poems as interlinked. No poem gives an answer. It may offer other questions, it may instigate other questions that then become poems.

  Pattiann Rogers

  Giving, May, Answers

  "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.

• I don't write or think too much about the word "salvation." I might; I probably should. We are such needy creatures, needing to be saved, to feel we are saved or might be, however we define ourselves, however we define that word.

  Pattiann Rogers

  Writing, Thinking, Might

  "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.

• I think parts of my soul have been saved by my writing, not in the sense of escaping death, but escaping the death of the moment, perhaps.

  Pattiann Rogers

  Writing, Thinking, Escaping

  "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.

• The silences express so much and are so crucial in music, and prose does not allow for the creation of these silences, these white spaces on the page or the computer screen.

  Pattiann Rogers

  White, Space, Silence

  "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.

• Poetry is very playful with language. I think all poetry, at its heart, is playful. It's doing unusual and playful things with the language, stirring it up. And prose is not doing that. Primarily it's not attempting to do that.

  Pattiann Rogers

  Heart, Thinking, Language

  "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.

• One of the most important differences I see between prose and poetry is the music of the language.

  Pattiann Rogers

  Prose And Poetry, Differences, Important

  "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.

• I think my prose - mine and that of others - sometimes slips into a cadence or rhythm that can replicate or come close to the music in a wonderful poem, and then it returns to the sound of prose.

  Pattiann Rogers

  Thinking, Sound, Cadence

  "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.

• To my mind, most prose poems are more prose than poetry. They don't possess most of the qualities of a poem.

  Pattiann Rogers

  Mind, Quality, Prose

  "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.

• I approach writing a poem in a much different state than when I am writing prose. It's almost as if I were working in a different language when I'm writing poetry. The words - what they are and what they can become - the possibilities of the words are vastly expanded for me when I'm writing a poem.

  Pattiann Rogers

  Writing, Different, Language

  "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.

• I'd rather call prose poems something else, for clarity - something like "poetic prose," prose that contains a quality of poetry, but not poems.

  Pattiann Rogers

  Quality, Clarity, Poetic

  "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.

• The greatest tragedy that can befall a poet is to be praised by being misunderstood.

  Pattiann Rogers

  Misunderstood, Tragedy, Poet

  "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.

• People sometimes think that defining a term is pedantic and useless, but terms need to be defined if they're going to be discussed, even if the terms are only defined for a single conversation. Those involved in the conversation need to know how the terms are being used.

  Pattiann Rogers

  Thinking, People, Needs

  "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.

• Often when I write poetry I don't quite know what I'm saying myself. I mean, I can't restate the poem. The meaning of the poem is the poem.

  Pattiann Rogers

  Writing, Mean, Knows

  "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.

• My object when writing prose is to write as clearly as possible. I think I know what I'm saying in prose, and I want others to understand it and to be able to restate it.

  Pattiann Rogers

  Writing, Thinking, Want

  "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.

• Poetry doesn't function by saying things straightforwardly because the language is too imprecise, too limited often, to address the underlying subject of most poems.

  Pattiann Rogers

  Addresses, Language, Function

  "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.

• A poetic list is a talent in itself. You can write a list of things, and it can be boring.

  Pattiann Rogers

  Writing, Lists, Talent

  "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.

• As far as I can tell, writing the essays didn't change the way I wrote poetry. Although the essays contain scattered passages that might be called lyrical, they often contain closed statements of what is only suggested in the poetry.

  Pattiann Rogers

  Writing, Might, Way

  "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.

• I do love writing prose interspersed with the poetry of other people. Their rhythms break into my prose and create a connection.

  Pattiann Rogers

  Writing, People, Connections

  "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.

• Often I'm struck by something that I read; then I go and research it a little more, especially if I begin a poem, and I find out that I need to know more. Then I usually get intrigued and excited about whatever it is I'm writing about.

  Pattiann Rogers

  Writing, Needs, Research

  "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.

• We're all vulnerable in our various ways, and what we are physically, our bodies, is what has developed with the goal of keeping that life safe and intact, at least until we have procreated. That's what our bodies are, the protection of life.

  Pattiann Rogers

  Goal, Body, Safe

  "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.

• For me, prose is never a poem. Because with prose there are so very few tools to create the music. And one of the most important tools missing is the ability to create silences, as you can in poetry by how you fashion the lines and breaks within the lines and stanzas.

  Pattiann Rogers

  Fashion, Missing, Silence

  "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.

• In poetry I can let the language go, allow an image that seems out of place to enter and see what happens, always listening to the music that's being created, just like the world around us, never predictable, always shifting and intertwining, reflecting and echoing itself.

  Pattiann Rogers

  Listening, World, Shifting

  "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.

• I love the language. I'm just totally fascinated by the sound and the look of words and the kinds of cadences you can create with them, the various kinds of music.

  Pattiann Rogers

  Sound, Looks, Cadence

  "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.

• Poetry is so close to music, not just in cadence and sound but in silences. That's why, to me, I can't talk about prose poems. I can talk about poetic prose.

  Pattiann Rogers

  Silence, Sound, Cadence

  "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.